Pshh. Rubio, as talented as he is, no Tony Parker, or Battier. What I mean by that is, he has done NOTHING to suggest that he's a good team guy willing ot learn and then teach. As a player, he's great, he'd probably be a fantastic pg on any nba team. But I wouldn't want him, LeBron, or CP3 (anymore) on the rockets. I'd rather them be on an opposing team, then crush them. That's fun.
To play Devil's advocate - First, while euro players were in vogue for a while, Darko scared them. Then Fran Vasquez refused to ever play a game in the NBA (and instead opted to remain in Rubio's home country of Spain). And how many other Euro players are having difficult times ever making it to the NBA because their buyout is too high and the amount a team would have to offer them to get them to come to the NBA makes them very risky? So, no, they don't trust Euro players like they used to. As to your second part, Rubio is a hell of a lot more hyped than Steve Nash or John Stockton ever were and he went considerably higher in the draft. And while neither of those guys might be described as "transcendent", they weren't far off. So I suppose by your logic Rubio is going to be even better than them and thus will be a transcendent point guard. Need I mention John Stockton and Steve Nash again? Magic Johnson? Oscar Robertson? I think I'll give you a pass and assume you meant to say confidence or arrogance? Because selfishness is not always required in our superstars. In fact, it's the ability to make team mates better that defines a superstar and that is usually due to the fact they make the unselfish pass when it's the right play. All of that said, I've enjoyed reading jopatmc's posts, but I think he's gone a bit overboard here too. We'll see. I have a very hard time believing Rubio will be a top 5 point guard the moment he steps on the court and an even harder time believing he'll be one of the greats. But I'm certainly more excited to see him step on to the court having read this thread. And either way it will be fun to either give him credit for seeing it all before we did or give him hell for being so incredibly wrong. So I am all for a thread like this. It takes balls to make a stance like this on an unproven youngster.
