Two years ago the Minnesota Timberwolves to a YouTube star as the 5th overall pick in the NBA draft. For the past two years he has been contractually obligated to Barcelona of the Euroleague. I don’t know a whole lot about European basketball or Ricky Rubio so I decided to do some investigating.
First stop, eBay to see what his autographs were going for. I took a look at some closed auctions and found out that his signed cards are in the $100 region. I thought that’s nuts for a kid who never played in the USA, but then again Darko’s cards were going the same way when he was the sandwich between LeBron and Melo. In short that’s some serious scratch for a hyped up European player.
Next I hit up Wikipedia to try and find out what his stats were like. This is where I was stunned. I’ve heard that he was a solid scorer and loves to dish the ball, even that he defense is amazing as he has lots of steals. Stats don’t lie:
42 games, 21.8 minutes per game, 4.8 points per game, 4.1 assists per game, and 1.6 steals per game
He’s not even the starter on his European League team anymore. I’m thinking ok, these are the stats of a 6th or 7th man. Let’s see how he did before hitting the pro league. His points per game were higher but not really anything else. So what am I missing? Is he some superstar that transcends conventional stats? I heard him being compared to Pistol Pete Marivich, as far as I know Pistol Pete averaged 40 points a game at that point in his career.
So I am left with the question, “What is the big deal about Ricky Rubio?” I don’t know but there is no way I would drop a C note on one of his autographs. Any takers as to what I am missing here? To me he seems like a marginal NBA player at best.
What do you know about Ricky?
Bad Wax 
There is good and bad with Rubio. He is and most likely never will be a scorer like Maravich. He does not shoot it well enough. The comparision from Maravich come from his ball handling and passing. Defensively he anticipates well which gives him a lot of steals but he does not have great lateral quickness and may have trouble defending one on one in the NBA. He has very good basketball IQ. In the 2008 Olympics he kept Spain in the game against the US (NBA players) when Jose calderon was injured.
hes white
There was a feature of Outside The Lines a while back that I seem to recall was about his struggles in the Euro League and how his production had really dropped off…He seems like a solid player, but I can’t see him being a star in the NBA.
Weber 10
Nowitzki, Maravich, Bird, McHale, Ainge, Walton, Stockton, Nash