3 Players Who Need To Score More Than Ricky Rubio Next Season

New Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders believes that Ricky Rubio needs to be a bigger scoring threat in order to take the “next step in the evolution of the point guard position.” At least, that’s what he told Fox Sports North’s Phil Ervin. Here are three players that need to score more than Rubio does next season for their teams to thrive.

The Timberwolves signed Nikola Pekovic to a new contract, and they’ve got perennial All-Star candidate Kevin Love coming back from an injury-plagued 2012-13 season. The ‘Wolves also signed Corey Brewer and acquired Kevin Martin in a sign-and-trade that unloaded Luke Ridnour. Minnesota is already pretty well set in the scoring department. Rubio just needs to do Rubio and dish his way into playmaking history; Steve Nash should be jealous of all the dime’s he’s throwing to a finally healthy Timberwolves team (knock on wood).

One thing Rubio does need to work on is his shooting, but that’s different then asking him to score more, which isn’t what Saunders said, but Ervin inferred. True, Saunders might have just uttered a throwaway August quote that’s more fluff than substance, but Rubio shouldn’t turn into a gunner, he just needs to improve his accuracy from beyond the three-point line while also making a higher percentage of his attempts at the rim.

His three-point shooting has always been an issue. After coming back from his ACL tear last season, he managed to shoot a dreadful 29 percent from behind the arc. But his long-range shooting is just the beginning.

Among point guards who averaged over 15 minutes a game last season and appeared in at least 30 games, Rubio’s 44 percent conversion rate at the rim ranked dead last in the league, per hoopdata. For a guy that averaged under 30 minutes a game last season, and still handed out 7.3 assists on average (good for 10th in the league), think of how many more dimes he would have gotten if defenses respected his shooting ability? The key is to get better at finishing on his drives (maybe some fake passes would help) and improve his three-point accuracy, not shoot the ball more, overall.

But there are multiple guys who actually need to score more next season in order for their teams to do well. Here are three examples that fit Saunders’ quote better than Rubio does.

*** *** ***

3. Dwight Howard

This is primarily tied to his effort level. A huge knock against him last season — one that could have been the result of his off-season back surgery — was how aloof Dwight appeared on defense. He wasn’t jumping as quickly to meet offensive players at the rim, and his defensive rotations weren’t as fast. He lacked that special oomph on defense that made him a three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

Dwight’s decision to head to Houston was peculiar to some observers since they run the same kind of pick-and-roll transition offense that LA tried to implement under Mike D’Antoni last season. Dwight claimed to not enjoy running pick-and-rolls in LA last year, but he’ll be asked to do a lot of that with James Harden in Houston. If he’s rolling to the basket on that p&r, or sprinting down the court in transition as the lead big man running right towards the rim, his overall hustle and engagement with the game will be tied to his number of offensive touches.

So he needs to be involved. As playground ball-handlers have known since time immemorial, you gotta “feed the big fella” if you want all the other things they provide too: rebounding, defense, screens — basically everything Omer Asik did last year without needing offensive touches to make him happy. If Asik starts at center with Dwight as a power forward in a sequel to Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, look out for a disgruntled Dwight if he’s not getting the touches he feels he deserves. He lived off of iso post touches during Stan Van Gundy’s reign in Orlando where team made the Finals one year by spreading the floor with three-point shooters who played off of Dwight drawing the double team in the post.

Dwight averaged 10.7 shots a game last season with the Lakers. That’s his lowest number of shot attempts since his second year in the league. It’s also almost three shot attempts less than he averaged during his last season in Orlando. If Dwight gets a chance to make a significant impact on the offense in Houston, look for his overall game to improve as a result. “Feed the big fella,” or you could have another mopey Dwight season.

See who will need to fill the offensive void left by a departing player…

2. Thaddeus Young

Woe is the Sixers’ faithful. New GM Sam Hinkie has blown up the team after realizing they weren’t going to win an NBA title with Jrue Holiday and a knee-less Andrew Bynum. Smart people are writing them off next season as they position themselves for a lottery pick in the deep 2014 Draft. The players who remain will all have to up their offensive game if they’re going to make up for the loss of Holiday this summer and Iggy the summer before. Maybe Hinkie is hoping that new coach Brett Brown encourages rookies Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel — when he’s fully recovered from his torn ACL — to take as many shots as possible.

But since Brown comes from the Spurs organization as a former-assistant under Popovich, we doubt he’ll have the stomach for such an anti-competitive maneuver with the offense. While we were tempted to put Evan Turner in this spot, his 41.9 percent shooting from the field scared us away. So that leaves…Thaddeus Young. The 6-8 lefy was their most efficient offensive player last season while averaging 14.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. The really important aspect of Young’s game was his shooting percentage. He shot 53.1 percent from the floor on his way to those 14 points. The only downside is he only attempted 12.6 field goals a game last season, perferring to stay on the margins of Philadelphia’s offense.

Young’s foul shooting also cratered last season. For his career, he’s hovered around 70 percent from the charity stripe and even shot a career high 77 percent during the 2011-12 season. But last season his free throw shooting fell 20 percentage points from the career high average a year before and that’s without a significant upgrade in his number of attempts. If Young’s twirling, deceptively accurate left-handed jumper and mini-hooks are going to become the offensive proxy for whatever player they draft next summer, he’s got to improve his accuracy from the line or guys will just drape themselves all over him rather than let him get a high percentage shot up on the rim.

Young shoots so efficiently — rarely missing a put-back tip or a crafty post shot that looks haphazard, but more often than not goes in — he’ll need to get back to his 2011-12 levels at the line if he’s going to carry the primary offensive burden on a young and overmatched Sixers team. Thad isn’t a No. 1 scoring option, and probably won’t ever be one, despite being just 25 years old entering his seventh season in the NBA. But he will need to be for this year’s Sixers team, at least to avoid the ignominy of challenging the Bobcats’ historically bad winning percentage during the 2010-11 lockout season. This Philly team is in range. It’ll be up to Young and others to help them avoid that fate during the rebuild.

See which title-contender needs their star to be a star on offense…

1. Blake Griffin

The 2011 Rookie of the Year has slowly been ceding his shot attempts in every season since. In his rookie campaign he put up 16.8 shots a game. In his second season — and first with new teammate Point God Chris Paul — that fell to 15.5 attempts. Last year, perhaps as a way to rest him for the playoffs, he played the fewest minutes of his career and only attempted 13.4 shots a game. That’s not how many shots you want your second best player to take, especially when you realize he hit almost 54 percent of his shots from the field last season.

You could lump Griffin in with Thaddeus Young, since he’s struggled from the line in the past, too. But after shooting a career low 52 percent from the charity stripe in his second season — a mark that earned him Hack-a-Blake stratagems from opposing coaches — Blake was back up to 66 percent this past season, the highest mark from the line in his short NBA career. But entering his fourth season, Blake needs to reverse that downward trajectory in points, rebounds and most especially, shots.

You can’t score if you don’t shoot. Maybe Blake was asked to defer by then-coach Vinny Del Negro? Or maybe he just didn’t want the responsibility. Perhaps the arrival of CP3 exacerbated an insecurity about taking over the offensive reigns. But now he’s got carte blanche to shoot, and shoot with abandon.

Chris Paul was vocal about the Clippers being Blake’s team this summer. The proof of Blake’s offensive superiority is in the numbers, too. When Blake was in the game last season — true, he is a starter and so was surrounded by better players, like Paul — the Clippers averaged 8 points more per 100 possessions, per NBA.com.

Blake’s polished an iffy jumper from when he came out of Oklahoma. Now defenders have to respect his shot from 15-feet in. Though his shooting percentage dropped a bit from 16-23 feet, it jumped to 40 percent from 10-15 feet (via hoopdata); last year he shot 27.7 percent from the same distance with fewer attempts. He’ll often get the ball unguarded just beyond the elbow, and now he can take what the defense gives him without looking lost. But he has to take it. Since Blake’s finishing ability at the rim is legendary, defenders generally concede that jumper as long as they avoid getting embarrassed at the rim.

But Blake has to take those shots. The Clippers will depend on it. With their new summer signings, J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley, spreading the floor along with Paul, Matt Barnes and Jamal Crawford, Blake will need to carry his own offensive load. It’s what leaders do, and as CP3 has already said this summer, “our team will definitely go as Blake goes.” For Blake that should mean spending a lot less time deferring to other — less talented — teammates, while maximizing his own game with an improved jumper and the athleticism that’s made him one of the most exciting players in the NBA today.

Which other players need to provide more scoring next season?

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @countcenci.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

×