Minnesota Timberwolves Must Avoid Paying Ricky Rubio After Losing Kevin Love
They say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
By now, the Minnesota Timberwolves know a thing or two about Love and loss alike. But after being cornered into trading away their disaffected star forward to the Cleveland Cavaliers, there's a very real danger the franchise could overspend in a bid to avoid more loss.
It flirts with said danger on account of point guard Ricky Rubio, the Spanish would-be star Minnesota selected with the No. 5 overall pick in 2009.
To be sure, Rubio's situation shares little in common with Kevin Love's. The 23-year-old has neither the superstar pedigree nor the requisite leverage to force a trade at this juncture.
Moreover, he's given no indication that he intends to do such a thing.
"I'm loyal," Rubio recently told Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. "I want to give them back what they gave me there: a lot of love."
Unfortunately, that love—not Love—will come at a steep price by all accounts.
The organization has until the end of October to sign Rubio to an extension, but it appears little progress has been made to that end. The chief culprit seems to be a disconnect between Rubio's market valuation and his agent's ambitious agenda.
Back in April, the Star Tribune's Jerry Zgoda speculated as much, writing, "Expect Rubio's side to push for a contract closer to a maximum salary than the four-year, $44 million extension Golden State's Stephen Curry received, which the Wolves just might view as beyond their limits."
Months later, little has changed.
Timberwolves reporter Darren Wolfson told Sportando's E. Trapani in August that "Rubio is on notice. The Wolves are trying to sign him to an extension, and so far his agent, Dan Fegan, is balking at the idea of a 4-year, $43 million deal."
"That's plenty for a player of Rubio's caliber," Wolfson adds. "It's a lot more than Atlanta point guard Jeff Teague makes—maybe a better player—and is what Golden State All-Star guard Stephen Curry makes. But Fegan is seeking the five-year max. That's not happening. The situation is pointing toward Rubio being a restricted free agent next summer."
In March, Grantland's Zach Lowe described Rubio as "among the most divisive players in the league now, in part because of the sense that his agent, Dan Fegan, is going to demand an eight-figure extension that Rubio does not yet deserve."
Accordingly, restricted free agency wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, especially for the Timberwolves.
Unless Rubio make significant strides this season, it's unlikely other teams will offer him anywhere near a max deal. Even with the massive deals Chandler Parsons and Gordon Hayward recently signed, the market for a point guard with limited shooting ability is a different story.
The available body of evidence suggests Rubio remains a large step behind someone like Curry. Last season the Spaniard averaged 9.5 points, 8.6 assists and 2.3 steals per contest. There's a lot to like about the line, but the bigger problem was that 2013-14 was the third consecutive season in which Rubio made well under 40 percent of his field-goal attempts—this time a career-high 38.1 percent.
Zgoda recently tweeted, "[Head coach and team president] Flip [Saunders] also said team will hire a shooting coach for this season. Rubio, [Chase] Budinger & others have been working [with] one based on LA."
So there's certainly a chance Rubio emerges as a much-improved shooter at some point this season, but it's hard to imagine him approximating Curry's production or efficiency.
The Golden State Warriors floor general averaged 24 points and 8.5 assists per game last season, converting on 47.1 percent of his field-goal attempts in the process. Rubio has a long way to go before putting up those kinds of numbers.
In turn, a deal that pays Rubio somewhere on the order of $10 million annually would seem nothing short of generous.
Exploring the free-agent market next summer may reveal as much.
In the meantime, Minnesota should resist the urge to overpay. Tempting as it may be to lock up a franchise cornerstone (shortly after losing another), Rubio is far more replaceable than Love.
It's true that teams like the Timberwolves sometimes have to sweeten deals due to the difficulties they have attracting external talent. Rubio's qualified commitment to the franchise may even indicate that now's the time for such a loyalty bonus.
Until the Timberwolves start winning, money is all they have to offer.
"I like Minnesota," Rubio explained to NBA.com's Scott Howard-Cooper in June. "But I want to win too. Of course when a big guy like [Love] leaves you're thinking about what's going to be happening with the team. Are we going to lose a lot?"
"Before I came to Minnesota, the season before they won like 17 games," Rubio continued. "I was a little scared when I went there. I'm coming from Europe, where I was playing in Barcelona. I think we lost six games or seven games in two seasons, and every loss was a disaster. I don't want to go through a process like every win is something special."
Wins may indeed be special this season, which could certainly lead Rubio's eyes to begin wandering.
There haven't been any ultimatums thus far, though. In fact, Rubio has attempted to distance himself from the contract process.
"It's something I'm not worried about," Rubio told reporters in April. "It's something my agent is going to talk [about] with Flip. It's something I don't have to be worried [about]. I just worry about playing."
Soon enough, however, he may be worried about playing for a raise over the $5,070,686 he's scheduled to make this season, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Unless his camp reaches an understanding with Minnesota, the campaign ahead reasons to be something of a league-wide audition.
An audition Saunders and Co. will watch closely.
In the event Rubio discovers a jump shot and transforms himself into a well-rounded scoring threat, the organization will happily reward him financially. But the Timberwolves would be well-served by allowing the market to make that determination.
They'll have the right to match any offer Rubio receives next summer, so there's little need to pre-empt that process with a potentially inflated extension.
This is no time for impulse buys.
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