RealGM

who will be the better player?
who will have the better carerr?
who will be more valuable?

i know alot of people here call Thabeet the "bust of the draft" or "sure fired bust". i also know that alot of people here buy into the Rubio hype saying he is the "next Kidd or Nash" or "he will become the best PG in the NBA"

i never bought into the hype, but i was really surpised that the Kings not only passed up on him, but took a SG when they have Martin. is the Rubio hype still their or gone down alittle bit.

Outside of Griffin, everyone in this draft had questions about them which split people into different camps on the prospects of each prospect.

I think both players will have good careers, but I side with Rubio as the better prospect because of basketball IQ.

I think Thabeet will be a good help shot blocker. That's not a bad thing, but not the complete player that someone hopes for with a #2 overall pick. I think the Pittsburgh games in college show exactly how you can derail him by going at him directly with a strength advantage. They'll be a lot of players with strength advantages on him in the NBA but there really aren't that many centers that are also skilled enough to exploit the advantage enough to dominate a game. Thabeet will affect the opposing team driving the lane which is what you really expect anyway. Offensively he isn't much right now, but if he developed a go to shot like a sky hook then he'd be able to exploit his height to be serviceable. As for rebounding, the height helps, but I'm not sure how much of a rebounding force he'll be day 1. He can too one thing right now and some of the rest must develop for him to become a good NBA player. A problem I see is that if he adds bulk to keep from being pushed around on the boards will it lead to physical breakdown because of his height?

Rubio has great vision and strong basketball instincts. He's also a fierce competitor. He'll sell a lot of tickets, but he has a flaw in his game at this point that will take many years to fix if it ever occurs and that is his shooting. Pau Gasol admitted in a recent interview that Ricky can shoot a lick. This will hurt his ultimate effectiveness as a book on how to negate him will quickly circulate (back off and dare him to shoot). The thing is with his vision and instinct if his teammates move and run an offense he will find the opening and he will make the pass. That's enough for him to be successful. If he can develop a stroke to go with it he'll become an elite player (it took Nash years to put it all together, but when he did he became MVP). As far as his defense, that doesn't bother me. Every rookie needs to play better defense, it is a given at this point in their development. The way perimeter contact is called on the NBA level these days your best defense as a PG is to just move your feet and not foul and have a shot blocking big behind you to stop the opponent from going all the way to the hoop. With that in mind it's not as important if he isn't a stellar defender. Rubio's area of needed development is a skill and with coaching and repetition that can be developed. He doesn't have both skill and physical development needs (like Thabeet) and that leads me to believe he is more likely to be all he can be.

I prefer PG's who can score. I don't at all get the idea that teams should want the ball in the hands of a guy who can't score very well. With the handchecking rules I prefer guys who will dominate 1 on 1 so the other team has absolutely no choice but to adjust and send lots of help- once the team is offbalance then you can find the open man.

That said- I dont' at all care about getting a "traditional center" either. I don't think that Thabeet is ever going to be much better than Samuel Dalembert. I suppose I'll take Rubio to have the better career but thats mostly because I think somehow he will end up in new york with D'Antoni