Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee writes this morning that we should count the Sacramento Kings among the teams that could talk to the Timberwolves about Ricky Rubio in the next two seasons. The thought is that two years from now Tyreke Evans will have turned himself into a legitimate star, but he still won't be a point guard. For that and other reasons, Rubio could be a good fit in northern California.
This idea does bring a couple of huge questions to the foreground, namely if Tyreke Evans is the shooting guard of the future instead of the point guard of the future, what exactly is the franchise planning to do with Kevin Martin, the team's current best player? Martin is still only 26 years old and one of the top scorers in the league—if Evans can't play point guard (and anybody who saw him play in Las Vegas will agree that passing and getting his teammates involved aren't going to be his strong points), then who will?
Don't necessarily count on Rubio, because the Wolves truly do not seem interested in moving him any time soon. They know he's a tremendous asset and that he's going to be an extremely valuable point guard somebody. With Jonny Flynn and potentially Ramon Sessions also on the roster for the next four seasons, the Wolves are going to have some talent to spare at that spot. It just doesn't seem as though Rubio would be the one they'd be most interested in dealing.
Unless, of course, Martin is at the other end of that move. If the Wolves were going to trade Rubio they'd have to return a top talent, and Martin would certainly qualify. And, considering Minnesota traded away both of their shooting guards to get that Rubio pick, someone like Kevin Martin could make all that dealing worth it again.
The other big question is, if the Kings needed a point guard so badly and still are so interested in Rubio, why didn't they just draft him instead of Evans in the first place? For one, Sacramento is a bad team right now that has to start winning some more games. They don't have the luxury of waiting two years like Minnesota, and it's unlikely that Ricky's final decision to stay in Spain would've been much different if he'd been the fourth pick rather than the fifth. Evans can help right away, and there was no guarantee that Rubio would make his way to the States. Sacramento went safe.
The Kings also still are hoping that Evans will eventually develop the ability to play point guard, but it's becoming clearer that he's just not that sort of player. Although he's a fantastic talent, he's not a distributor. The good news (or bad news depending on how you look at it) is that in the two years leading up to Rubio's potential buyout the Kings will likely get a couple more high draft picks. There will be more opportunities to draft a franchise point guard.
In the meantime, count Sacramento as one more franchise looking to sniff at Rubio's availability.
