Growing up outside of Pittsburgh I've never had an allegiance to an NBA team. The logical choice would be to follow the Cavaliers, but ever since MJ pissed all over Craig Ehlo all I wanted to be like was Mike rather than, let's say, "Hot Rod" Williams. The only viable option was to follow the players; Bird, MJ, Kobe etc...
It's a very disparaging existence for a sports fan not to have a team. I have never felt established or legit in my NBA fandom. A few months back when the Minnesota Timberwolves drafted the 19 year old Spanish version of Pistol Pete, I started chanting his name, "RUBIO, RUBIO...RU-BI-OOOOO". I was pumped! This was my guy. Good enough to be a star, young enough to begin a long career of AND1 moves and Geico commercials.
Minnesota, a young team on the rise, had drafted Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio and dumped the moronic Kevin McHale wihin a couple weeks. This was it, this was my new team. Day after day I waited for Minnesota to finalize the deal. Ready to be the first in line to order his T'Wolves jersey and "Ricky Rubes" shoes from Nike. I waited...but that day never came.
Last week it was announced that due to NBA buyout clause restrictions and a little case of cold feet by the whirling Spaniard, Rubio was staying abroad. Never the matter that GM David Kahn traveled to Spain 3 times to plead his case, even convincing Rubio at one point to commit to Minnesota and the NBA now...Ricky baby dropped his rattle and clung to his mother country of Barcelona, Spain.
His new 6 year deal with Barcelona allows a similar buyout during the next 2 summers with a zero buyout over the summer of 2011. It is expected, or better yet hoped by the T'Wolves front office that they will own the rights to Ricky and in turn receive a more polished and mature player in 2 years time. The most important storyline from this whole charade is the fallout for fans like myself. Yet again the sour taste of rejection is gargled while the dreams of becoming a steady fan of an NBA team slip away. Now I must wait 2 more years to know for sure. I will keep my loyalty to the the baller I am calling the "salty dog" with the hope that he will one day lead my T'Wolves to the Finals.
Years from now my unborn son will put down his foam finger, mute Charles Barkley during the halftime show and ask me, "Dad, how did we become T'Wolves fans?". I will confidently and quietly point to the picture over our fireplace of the boy wonder, Ricky "Rubes" Rubio.
unfortunately, you will never see rubio in a t-wolves jersey. the moment they selected flynn he was never going to be there. Yes, the wolves have his rights for 2 years but he will still have to pay his own buyout and is subject to the rookie salary scale. if he waits 3 years, he will be 21 and not subject to the rookie scale with 3 years of seasoning. It is possible he could command a max deal that would allow him to easily pay the buyout with a team that does not have a point guard. The wolves are retarded! By drafting Flynn they waved bye bye to any leverage they had because not only would rubio have to pay his own buyout (which is almost his entire salary) he is doing so to be on a team with an older, talented point guard who is going to start over him and have to hear whispers that he is a bust. Those who think the 2 could've played together don't watch basketball because 2 undersized, ball dominating point guards in the same backcourt will not work! (i know rubio is tall but he is skinnier than Kate Beckinsale) As espn analyst chad ford correctly pointed out the only way they could've gotten him to stay was to draft Stephen Curry and at least have a player that can shoot to build around Rubio's excellent court savvy. By drafting Flynn, they lost all leverage and basically forfeited a lottery pick. They clearly had no plan because they traded to valuable assets (Foye and Miller) for crap and the fifth pick, and now they will never get that pick. Here's hoping Rubio comes back in 3 years and joins the Wizards, making circle of stupidity complete
ReplyDelete