This is a first for the Short Hops blog, the "I made a mistake post". Back in June I posted this article; Ricky Rubio-Savior? outlining, in detail all of the reasons I thought Ricky Rubio would be a bust. 8 months later I'm not ready to anoint him as the second coming of Magic, or even John Stockton, but those guys are Hall-of-Famers. Right now, Rubio has been very, very good, and even though the Linsanity, Jeremy Lin has taken his point guard spotlight, Rubio has been the best point guard rookie of the season. That includes, #1 pick Kyrie Irving, who is scoring more, but not playing better.
In my article I asserted that Rubio isn't that great of a shooter and ultimately teams would just play way off him and force him to try and score. Even though teams SHOULD be doing that, because he's an abysmal shooter (38% from the 2 point range, 32% from 3) so far they have not been able to. The thing that has impressed me the most about Rubio so far is his change of pace ability to be able to sneak into the lane, and at the very least draw fouls. More than anything though, he has absolutely energized his teammates, the fans, and the franchise. I'm taking my son to a game in March, and I'm honestly looking forward to seeing Rubio more than any other player.
I will still reserve judgement on his top 5 pick status, as 31 games is still an extremely small sample size, but right now he's looking pretty darn good. And if you really want to see how fun a player he can be, check out the Rookie/Sophmore game this weekend during All-Star weekend. Normally those games are terrible, but when you get an up-tempo game, with a point guard that sees everything, you are going to see two things; some incredible passes, and at least one guy get hit in the head with one of those incredible passes because he's not used to playing with a pass first point guard. So, to you Ricky, I'm very sorry I thought you would suck, I was wrong. Now work on your shooting....please.
