Ricky Rubio, an instrumental part to the early success of the Utah Jazz, has spiraled into a seemingly endless struggle. If things don’t pick up in a hurry, Utah’s new starting point guard could be on the trade block.
Ricky Rubio’s first eight games in a Utah Jazz uniform were impressive, although uncharacteristic of his style of play in previous campaigns. Rubio averaged 17.5 points on 44 percent from the field and 37 percent from downtown, to go with 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 6.5 assists (albeit with 4.4 turnovers) in those games.
He put up these solid numbers while helping the Jazz to a 5-3 record to kick-start the season.
Ever since, Rubio hasn’t come close to matching the output of his fast start or tremendous second-half run last season. Lately, he’s been putting up some of the worst numbers of his career.
In his last 11 games, Rubio has averaged just 9.6 points on a measly 34 percent from the field and an astounding 19 percent from deep, with four assists, 2.5 boards and 2.7 turnovers. As a team, the Jazz have matched Rubio’s underwhelming play at times, going a lackluster 4-7 over this stretch of games.
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Rubio’s fit was questionable from the beginning. I, for one, was baffled by Dennis Lindsey’s move to bring in a non-shooter to replace George Hill. In a system that already suffered from a lack of floor spacing with Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert starting in tandem, I found bringing in a player that shoots a career 31 percent from deep quite strange.
As expected, the three-man lineup of Favors, Gobert and Rubio failed miserably ,even as the Jazz were stringing together wins. Interestingly enough, after the injury that would sideline the Stifle Tower, the floor spacing subsequently improved, but Rubio has still been unable to produce.
Rubio’s inability to shoot the long-ball is changing the opposition’s entire defensive outlook against Utah. Almost all of Rubio’s jump shots are uncontested by design, which is putting a tremendous burden on high-usage players such as Rodney Hood and Donovan Mitchell.
Despite Rubio’s label as a solid perimeter defender, he’s looked like the odd man out in the Jazz’s defensive schemes on a number of occasions. He has a tendency to gamble for steals that are often detrimental to the team, he struggles to match-up on bigger guards without fouling, and he is getting beaten off the dribble seemingly every time down the court.
In Utah’s blowout win over the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, we saw Rubio get beaten off the dribble three times in a matter of minutes by Jerian Grant, before being benched for the opportunistic Raul Neto. The same thing occurred when Ricky was tasked with guarding Milwaukee’s Eric Bledsoe on Saturday.
Neto has been an unexpected source for consistent production since Rubio’s struggles began and he’s outplayed the Spaniard on a nightly basis.
It’s not just that Neto has outplayed Rubio in one facet of the game, Neto has been better in every area of the game. Neto is far and above the better shooter of the pair (44 percent on 3-point attempts this season), he’s more active and disciplined on defense, he takes care of the ball and he’s able to take advantage of mismatches by penetrating and collapsing the defense.
It’s getting to the point where the Jazz are exceeding expectations while Neto is on the floor, and struggling to survive while Rubio is on the floor. In Utah’s last 12 games (since Rubio’s struggles began), the Spaniard has a total plus/minus of minus-31, while Neto has a total plus/minus of plus-55.
In other words, the Jazz have been 86 points better with Neto on the court as opposed to Rubio over that stretch.
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Quite frankly, this in itself is enough of a reason for Neto to be starting over Rubio. The Jazz are paying Rubio in excess of 14 million dollars per year, and if he continues along this trend, one has to wonder whether Rubio should hit the trade block.
When Gobert returns to the starting lineup, the same problem will likely occur with the lack of spacing he, Favors and Rubio cause. Since Rudy is in no way, shape or form a chance to come off the bench, it would behoove the Jazz to play either Ricky or Derrick with the second unit.
The three-man lineup of Rubio, Favors and Gobert has a net rating of minus-13.7 in 201 minutes this season. This is a large enough sample size to predict that the Jazz will continue to struggle with this lineup on the floor.
Neto, Favors and Gobert have played just six minutes together all season so the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.
The two-man lineup of Favors and Rubio has a net rating of minus-5.6 in 372 minutes. Whereas the two-man lineup of Neto and Favors has a net rating of plus-13 in 57 minutes.
So with all things considered, Neto looks like a far better fit in the starting lineup. In this case, do the Jazz start looking to trade Rubio?
I love Rubio and I really wish the Jazz could make it work, but the more I see, the more it looks like it’s just a bad fit. So yes, I believe the Jazz have to listen to all offers at this point. Sadly, due to Rubio’s inability to produce of late and underwhelming stat line, his trade value may have dropped considerably to the point where he’s not worth a starting-caliber player in return.
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Maybe the Jazz look to trade him for a solid backup point guard and turn Dante Exum into a starter if/when he gets healthy. Or maybe the Jazz continue their mini-rebuild by looking for a draft pick in return.
As much as fans would like for it to work out, Ricky Rubio and the Utah Jazz don’t look right for each other, and its starting to seem like they never will.
Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference and NBA.com.