He absolutely panicked! I refuse to imagine DL or Quin are stupid enough to think he would fit. They simply panicked. My first thought was - they panicked. And they did. There was absolutely nothing that should have made them think Rubio is a good fit and we traded a good first round pick for him. This first rounder could have been a good bullet in the barrel in case a trade up scenario opens up for one of the stars in the draft even if we don't end up with a top pick.
This type of appeasement moves pretty much never work. If you have to get a second rate point guard to convince somebody to come to/stay with your franchise then he's not staying anyways. That's like when Miami drafted Shabbaz Napier because LeBron liked him in the draft only to see LeBron walk anyways. Or when PHX went to the LMA meeting with newly signed Tyson Chandler just cuz LMA reportedly liked Chandler and wanted to play PF. Those are desperation/panic moves that haunt you for years. If the player doesn't trust your program/processes and/or trusts another team's program more, one move will not make him stay or go, the whole big picture of where your franchise is and where it's going will be much bigger part of the puzzle.
Do what's your best for your franchise. If the guy cannot appreciate that, it's OK. Let him walk, he probably would have walked anyways, no matter what you did in this specific instance, only this time you wouldn't have compromised your team and its asset base.
