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SALT LAKE CITY — Following Wednesday’s win over the Suns, Ricky Rubio side-stepped reporters. He walked around the media members assembling around his huddle, before answering a few questions in Spanish and then sliding out the door.
He was a little more light-hearted leading into Thursday’s trade deadline.
Rubio started off by tweeting that “Joe Ingles had two coffees this am league source tell Ricky.”
Then he informed his followers that his code to the practice facility still worked. And finally, at around noon, Rubio posted: “1h left, If I turn my phone on airplane mode, does it count?”
... Joe Ingles had two coffees this am league source tell Ricky 🤪
— Ricky Rubio (@rickyrubio9) February 7, 2019
Maybe Rubio already knew what everyone soon would find out — he was staying in Utah.
The NBA trade deadline came and went without the Jazz making any deals.
Utah had been in talks with Memphis for point guard Mike Conley, but despite the Grizzlies selling off a number of players on Thursday — including franchise cornerstone Marc Gasol — they ultimately decided to hold on to their point guard. And that meant Utah was keeping theirs as well. Along with everyone else.
An hour after the trade deadline, Rubio along with Derrick Favors — another player that had heard his name in trade reports — were at Primary Children’s Hospital shooting hoops and playing games with the kids there.
It was the annual trip to the hospital for the Jazz team, but those types of acts aren’t uncommon for this Utah team and especially Rubio. The Spanish point guard makes frequent visits to Huntsman Cancer Institute and doctors there even presented him with his own white lab coat as a thank you for his support.
It’s those reasons and more that Rubio the man has endeared himself to Jazz fans. Rubio the player, though, can at times be inconsistent. That’s why some of the fan base were hopeful for a trade. But there’s also history to suggest that Rubio will play his best basketball in the season in the coming months.
Before the All-Star break in 2015-16, Rubio shot 36.1 percent shooting and 29.2 percent behind the 3-point line. After the All-Star break, he hit on 39.6 percent of his shots and 36.9 percent of his 3-point tries.
That wasn’t a one year blip either.
In 2016-17, Rubio’s shooting percent went from 38.6 percent before the break to 42 percent after it. And his 3-point shooting went up seven percent to 35.1.
It was more of the same last season, his first in Utah, with Rubio shooting 43.9 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from deep post-All-Star break after hitting 41 percent of his shots (32.4 percent) before it.
Rubio is currently averaging 12.9 points on 40.5 percent from the field and 32.7 percent from 3-point range. Can Rubio have a fourth straight post-All-Star jump? By staying pat, that’s what the Jazz are hoping.
And Rubio’s pattern of second-half improvement fits in the Jazz’s own under head coach Quin Snyder. During the 2014-15 season, the Jazz had a defensive revolution in the latter months of the year, going from one of the league’s worst defenses to one of the best. And last season, with the help of Rubio’s hot stretch, the Jazz finished the year going 29-6.
“They are going to play the best basketball, and that’s proven, in the second part of the season,” Phoenix head coach and former Jazz assistant Igor Kokoskov said. “As the season goes on, they play better and better.”
Dante Exum and Thabo Sefolosha’s expected return to the lineup soon after the All-Star break should help bolster the Jazz, too. Exum was playing arguably the best basketball of his career before suffering a high-ankle sprain against Detroit on Jan. 5.
The Jazz players aren’t sad about management keeping the team together, either.
"To have 15 guys that want to be here is special,” Ingles said on Wednesday. “We have a tight bond. We have a special group that genuinely enjoys playing together, which I think is hard to find.”
Last week, when asked about the makeup of the Jazz, Rudy Gobert said that he believes Utah has the roster to compete in the West.
After Thursday, his team has the chance to prove him right.
Trade deadline deals with local ties
- Former Utah Ute Delon Wright was traded by Toronto to Memphis as part of a deal for Marc Gasol. The Raptors also sent Jonas Valanciunas, former Jazzman CJ Miles and a 2024 second-round pick, per ESPN.
- Former Jazzman Alec Burks was traded from Cleveland to Sacramento as part of a three-team trade.
