The Minnesota Timberwolves selecting Kris Dunn fifth overall during last month's NBA draft appeared to signify the end of Ricky Rubio's tenure with the franchise.
That's not how team owner Glen Taylor sees things, though.
"I don’t see that as a likely possibility,” Taylor sold The Star Tribune's Sid Hartman about Rubio getting dealt. "I just think the coach, everybody, likes Ricky. I think we want him to come in and improve on his shooting. But his other things, he plays defense, he gets assists, he helps the others get better. He has some wonderful qualities."
"I think the coach wants to bring an assistant coach to help Ricky on his shooting and I think that’s where we’re going to start out and go and we’ll see how good Kris Dunn is."
New head coach Tom Thibodeau has hinted that he'd be willing to run lineups with both point guards on the floor at the same time, since he feels "they're both capable of playing off each other."
Should the team ultimately throw in the towel and hand the keys over to Dunn, though, Rubio's contract takes him through the 2018-19 campaign at between $13-15 million per season and should make him attractive to other teams looking for an upgrade at the position.
In 76 appearances last season, the 25-year-old Spaniard averaged 10.1 points, 8.7 assists (fifth in NBA), and 2.1 steals (second). As Taylor pointed out, it's Rubio's shooting percentages which continue to haunt his game and the Timberwolves as a whole, as he converted fewer than 38 percent of his field-goal attempts for the fourth time in five years.
