SALT LAKE CITY — Ricky Rubio is the Jazz's lone international player participating in FIBA Eurobasket, the European basketball national team championship that takes place biannually. He's led Spain to a 5-0 record through the group stages of the tournament. How's he doing? Let's check it out.

Here are Rubio's stats so far:

Rubio is starting and playing just over 20 minutes a game, thanks to Spain's depth at the point guard position and their mostly blowout wins so far. These are good stats, but of course they should be good against mostly non-NBA competition.

But what's stood out about Rubio is how he's playing during the first five games of Eurobasket. It seems like a continuation of the aggressive Rubio that Minnesota saw at the end of last season.

First of all, he's been much more aggressive about taking all manners of threes — in transition, pulling up and even when he's not really open:

That average is now up to 6.5 threes taken per 36 minutes, Rubio's highest ever during his career. So far he's made 47.4 percent. Five games is too small of a sample size regarding the percentage to really believe in it too much, but Rubio's choice to take more shots really is significant.

He's also being aggressive in other ways. Look at him take it right at this backpedaling defender in transition, then finish with an easy layup with his left hand:

It's nice to see. There are problems, though. Rubio still doesn't seem to have developed a floater game, which means opponents can sink off of him and force him to pass, sometimes with disastrous results.

Adding this to his game would be a huge step toward making him more of a scoring threat. This is something that the Jazz's coaching staff has expressed some confidence in improving, however.

The defensive effort has been on and off, and it's been pretty correlated with how far ahead Spain is of its opponents. When he's switched off, Rubio has a tendency to be slow in getting around screens, forcing Spain's bigs to come up and help more in the pick and roll. When he's on, he'll fight his way around those with more enthusiasm. He also seems to put more of an effort on the defensive glass in closer games, too.

Still, averaging two steals per game in 20 minutes of play is pretty good. It really is largely due to active hands, making usually easy passes difficult and even sinking down in the paint on big men to get outright strips.

You also may have noticed the biggest difference in Rubio at Eurobasket: his overall look. He's added a lion tattoo and significant length to his hair:

Now coming up for Rubio and Spain is the 16-team single-elimination tournament. The first game is against Turkey, playing without most of its NBA stars like Enes Kanter. A win there would likely set up a match with rival France, playing without Rudy Gobert but with stars like Evan Fournier and Boris Diaw. Here's the full tournament:

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