In the mock drafts that I’ve seen, Spaniard Ricky Rubio is the consensus #2 or #3 pick in this year’s NBA Draft. I saw him play a couple of times in last summer’s Olympics and I thought that he would make a solid NBA point guard, but I didn’t see the same things that the scouts are apparently seeing. TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott wrote a nice piece about how much potential Rubio has, and how it needs to be cultivated, not rushed to market.

At the lottery, everybody said the same admiring things about his feel for the game, handle, vision, leadership … but sometimes these ideas leap from mind to mind without ever touching ground. I found myself looking around the room and wondering: How much have you even seen Rubio play? What kind of vetting has he had?

Ricky Rubio will turn 19 in October. He has missed all kinds of games with injuries. He has played his entire early career in Spain. Almost everyone who makes the big decisions for NBA teams lives in the U.S. He has not done draft workouts.

That pretty much sums up my concerns about the kid.

Throw in the fact that he has a pretty suspect (but apparently improving) jumper, and the Steve Nash/Pete Maravich comparisons are very premature. Nash is one of the best pure shooters in the league and it’s that ability that pulls his defender out and allows him to beat people on the dribble. The Maravich comparison is more about body type than it is about how the two players play — Maravich was a scorer first and a passer second. Rubio is the opposite.

It’s tough to gauge Rubio’s future without knowing how much his shot will improve; in my experience, you can either shoot the ball or you can’t, and it’s tough to turn an average or poor shooter into a great or good shooter. It takes a TON of practice.

Now, the positives…

When Rubio has the ball, something sizzling and unexpected could happen at any time, and it often does. He not only makes passes that make you say “wow” but he also does everything imaginable to cleverly get teammates open and then deliver them the ball. He catches defenders snoozing. He beats his man and gets into the paint, and once he gets there, the ball could be going one-handed to the far corner, gently lobbed at the rim for the big man, shoveled at the last instant to an open teammate, or anything else.

Also worth noting from those highlights: The Joventut big men running their asses off. They know they’ll get the ball, thanks to Rubio. Getting big men out on the break is an important skill. Sometimes 18-year-old prospects don’t have any skills that are truly NBA ready. Not a problem here. He has elite ideas about what to do with the ball.

He also has an elite ability to think through the game when he does not have the ball. Thanks to extraordinary anticipation, he’s a persistent threat to pick off the ball on defense … he’s constantly out-thinking savvy opponents, closing angles, cutting off passing lanes, and anticipating what could be coming. He has uncanny ability to strip the ball without fouling.

Abbott goes on to say that Rubio is just an OK athlete and that whatever team that drafts him needs to exercise patience (i.e. he’s not ready to start right away and be successful). It sounds like he needs to land with a team that will allow him to come off the bench while he learns the intricacies of the NBA game. Unfortunately, when looking at the draft order, other than the Clippers at #1 and the Wizards at #5, there isn’t a team with an established point guard picking in the top six.

Here is what Chris Paul said about playing against Rubio in the Olympics:

“When I met Ricky on the court, I knew he had very long arms and I couldn’t play much with the ball or he would steal it from me. He is also very unselfish, he has great passing skills. He is like me, we don’t try to score, and we try to find the open man to help the team.”

Keep in mind that was at a joint appearance in Barcelona, so Paul might have been massaging his scouting report a bit since Rubio was sitting right next to him. Paul has also called Rubio “unbelievable,” so it’s clear that he does admire the kid.