The Minnesota Timberwolves, if anything, are sellers as this week’s NBA trade deadline looms. Some veterans stand out as tradable pieces, most notably Kevin Martin if he wasn’t having the worst season of his career, but in recent trade speculation Ricky Rubio‘s name has surfaced often.
Last week, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst dropped the nugget that teams were calling the Timberwolves about Rubio and general manager Milt Newton dismissed the possibility that the point guard will be traded. More recently, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reported the Timberwolves have made Rubio “readily available” via trade, and the New York Post followed up with a report mentioning Rubio as a possible trade target for the Indiana Pacers.
At this point, Rubio’s shortcomings are clear, particularly as a three-point shooter (29.2 percent this season), but he’s also clearly the Timberwolves’ assist leader (8.6 per game this season) and the only true, polished point guard on the roster. Without Rubio around, dunk contest champion Zach LaVine would be forced into a role he is not ready to take on, or well-suited for, at this point in his career.
A potential high point for Rubio’s trade value could be right now, since he has scored in double figures in five of the last six games and was a three-point marksman (3-for-6) in Minnesota’s final game before the All-Star break. But a glance at the stat sheet shows how important Rubio has been all season, relatively speaking, since no one else is even averaging 3.5 assists per game and he has more than one-third (414) of the Timberwolves’ total number of assists thus far (1,207).
If Rubio could be swapped for a point guard who is more of a consistent scoring threat, that deal should get done in a heartbeat. But I doubt that kind of trade is on the table, or will be in the next few days, so the Timberwolves should keep Rubio in the fold right now.
