JAZZ HITS A HIGH NOTE WITH POINT GUARD RUBIO
The Utah Jazz acquired point guard Ricky Rubio from the Minnesota Timberwolves for a top-14 protected 1st-round draft pick in 2018 (formerly belonging to the Oklahoma City Thunder).
What does it give the Utah Jazz
Rubio isn't perfect but it appears Utah finally has the premier point guard the team has been wanting for the past few years. He's both a fantastic passer who makes his teammates better, and a creative, exciting player who will bring fans to games. This suggests Jazz management is moving on from George Hill (last season's point-man, who's now a free agent). Rubio is locked into a multi-year deal, so Utah brass looks committed to its new top playmaker.
What does it give the Minnesota Timberwolves
Timberwolves boss Tom Thibodeau clearly wants a different fit at point guard than Rubio for his team, perhaps more of a pure shooter. Rubio's primarily a distributor, and his only significant drawback as a player is his shooting precentages (from the floor overall and especially from the 3-point line). This move frees up significant salary cap space--over $14 million next season--to sign a free agent point guard this summer. The draft pick is additonally a nice asset (even if it's not a lottery pick).
Fantasy impact
Rubio should be just as productive with the Jazz as he was with the T-Wolves, and possibly even moreso. He should additionally boost the fantasy fortunes of new teammates Rudy Gobert, Derrick Favors, Rodney Hood, and rookie Donovan Mitchell. This deal probably ensures Mitchell will play more shooting guard than point guard in the coming few seasons, which might hurt Hood's fantasy value (depending on who wins the starting shooting guard job, although Hood may well move to small forward). This deal also pretty much saps the fantasy chances of disappointing combo guard Dante Exum. On the Minnesota side of things, this swap likely hurts the fantasy production of T-Wolves stars Jimmy Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Andrew Wiggins; all three will need to share the ball, and if they get less of a pass-first point guard running the show--which now seems inevitable--there will be even fewer shots to go around.
