
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Cooler, where some things never change even if you want them to. Let's get to it:
*A few years ago, I wrote about how Ricky Rubio was the worst shooter in modern NBA history based on some simple criteria: Of all players as of December 2015 who had played at least 5,000 career minutes since the 1979-80 season, when the NBA adopted the three-point line, Rubio had the worst shooting percentage of all of them.
He has since made a pretty significant amount of improvement — shooting better than 40 percent each of the last three seasons after never doing that previously — and stands as just the 13th-worst of all-time. His shooting percentage the last three years (.409) would barely crack the top 100 worst all-time). But most of us would still agree that even an improved Rubio is still not a very good shooter.
His unreliable shot was the primary reason Tom Thibodeau traded him after the 2016-17 season away from the Wolves to the Jazz (for the first-round pick that became Josh Okogie). There are countless things to miss about Rubio — front and center of which are his joy, passion and vision — but as a calculated decision about how Rubio's skill set translated to crunch time of games, Thibodeau was not wrong.
With that as a preamble, let's turn our attention to Game 5 of the Jazz's playoff series Wednesday against Houston. It was an elimination game with Utah trailing 3 games to 1.
Rubio played a very good overall game, finishing with 17 points (on a respectable 7 for 15 shooting) and 11 assists. He made a short jumper late in the fourth quarter to pull Utah within one point of the Rockets at 94-93. But then, after a defensive stop, Rubio found himself in transition wide open in the left corner. He took the pass, loaded up the perfect look, and with the chance to give his team the lead with just over a minute left … missed everything.
The Jazz never scored again, losing 100-93 and getting eliminated. It was possible in that exact moment to feel very badly for Rubio and also to deeply understand the trade at the same time. That the airball became a punch line is unfortunate but understandable.
The sad part is that the air ball might be the last memory of Rubio in Utah. He's a free agent after this season, and it's highly questionable whether the Jazz will re-sign him. Rubio missed 14 games this season; the Jazz won the first 8 and was 10-4 overall without him. Donovan Mitchell had the ball in his hands a lot more when Rubio didn't play, and the results were quite good.