NBA Fantasy Basketball Advice: Roster Ricky Rubio
Sometimes a player comes into a league with great anticipation and expectations. Sometimes they fit the billing. Other times they are a flop. It's early, but it appears that Minnesota point guard Ricky Rubio has the makings of an above-average NBA point guard.
His playing time has slowly grown from 26 minutes in his debut to 31 Friday night. He had the first double-double of his young career, scoring 12 points and dishing out 12 assists.
On the year he's averaging 8.0 points, 4.7 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 0.7 three-pointers. One of the knocks on Rubio was his shooting ability. It's obviously early, but he's making 61.5 percent of his shots. He hasn't taken many shots from downtown, but that should increase going forward. His 75.0 percent free-throw shooting isn't great, but it isn't hurting fantasy teams either.
It's not all roses for Rubio. He is averaging 2.7 turnovers per game, a number that will increase as his playing time increases. That is to be expected from a playmaker like Rubio that needs to have the ball. He's going to make brilliant passes. Some of them won't work. There should be enough good to outweigh the bad, though.
Rubio will be a popular guy on waiver claims today. Anytime someone drops that many dimes in a game, it grabs people's attention. If he's available in your league, act now. If you wait too long, he'll be snatched up.
You'll have to deal with some inconsistency, and it is conceivable that he'll hit a wall, but the potential is too great to pass up.
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