Comparing styles of play by bringing up All-Star appearances and rings (while excluding Olympic gold-medal games ) is pretty ridiculous as well. Was Rubio a bench player last year? What were Rondo's first 52 games like? Wait, I know, let's use an 229-minute sample and one particular statistic coming off of an injury to invalidate 7 years of the same style of play. :MARIS61: What, pray tell, are Rondo's skills? Having 3 Hall of Famers as teammates and winning a ring? Being an all-star in his 4th season? Since I can't foresee what Rubio's next 3 years are going to be like (I mean, will MIN trade with Kevin McHale to put 3 HoFers around Rubio?), I look at their (ahem) skillsets. Like being gambling-on-defense PGs...like not having a jump shot (though Rubio looks like Ray Allen in comparison to Rondo), like all the things in my previous post that you're attempting to invalidate b/c of a 229-minute sample. I notice you didn't bring up how Rondo's rookie year is clearly inferior to Rubio's in every way. I mean, in Rondo's first 52 games... In his second year So in his second year, Rondo couldn't match what Rubio's rookie year was. Hm.
.7 less steals per 36 minutes. 110 to 104 defensive rating. Very little difference. Actually theres very little difference in any part of their games, except that Sergio was a better shooter/scorer.
I would take any of the backup PGs we used to have; Sergio, Patty Mills (who I think was the one who should have stayed), Jack, etc. over our backup PGs now.
I'd say 110-104 is a pretty large difference in DRTG. On top of that, just taking it by itself is pretty useless. I mean, unless you believe that Blake Griffin is one of the top PF defenders in the league, next to Boozer. Rubio's rating last year was 104. But Minnesota as a team was almost 107. Sergio never had a rating better than his team's overall rating, and the only time he was within even 1 whole point of it was on Sacramento.
I don't take it by itself, Rubio sucks at defense when I see him play too. All I'm saying is that Sergio was as good at passing, better at scoring, and worse at defense. I just don't see why you're so adamant about Rubio being so much better at defense it's "not even close".
Hollinger's take: You can argue whether he is elite, but saying he's close to Sergio on defense is just foolish.
Hollinger also said the Lillard was the most overrated prospect in the last draft. Rubio is not a great defender. At best, he's average. More surprising is that Sergio has a better Ortg than Rubio (101 to 97). I thought Rubio was supposed to be the next Pistol Pete?
IIRC, Hollinger (if it wasn't him, it was another big-wig prospect analyst at ESPN) had stats/projections showing Batum would also be a huge bust. I'd probably say that was inaccurate. Just maybe. Hollinger provides some fun analysis at times, but he's like rest rest of us: right as much as he is wrong.
I don't think Hollinger has ever tried to compare Rubio and Rondo, though. That would be a career killer. I mean, career stats are fun to look at, but nothing about Rubio's game says "Rondo" to me. But, that horse is already dead...
Oh I never said he did (not that you were saying I said he did). I can't imagine anyone making that comparison.
