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SALT LAKE CITY ─ “Everyone knows how hard it is to make your own name in a league like NBA, and coming from other country, it’s even harder," Ricky Rubio told Jazz radio play-by-play man David Locke on the team's media day. "Everybody wants to come here and play.”
Rubio is familiar with the foreign player stigma. Can their talents translate to the NBA is a big question that often surrounds players who come to the league from other countries.
However, Rubio isn’t like most other former foreign prospects. He’s been a part of pro basketball since the young age of 14. While other kids in his native Spain were worried about things like going to the beach, acne and making new friends, Rubio was worried about asking his mom if she would let him leave school for training camp and join the team.
“My mom let me skip school for a week, and I became pro,” Rubio told Locke.
Rubio got his start after impressing the coaches of DKV Joventut, a Spanish basketball club in the Spanish Liga ACB. Ricky’s older brother, Marc Rubio, played for the first team. Ricky was coming from the beach, wearing flip flops to watch his brother and a friend practice with the team, but the problem was they only had nine players and couldn’t play a proper scrimmage. The coach of Joventut approached Ricky in the stands and asked if he had some shoes so he could come down and play with the first team.
“I went to one of my good friends who was walking around the practice facility and ask if he had shoes and [he] said yeah. They were a little too small, but they were basketball shoes, that’s all I needed,” Rubio said.
Rubio’s chance scrimmage with the team impressed the coaching staff so much that the very next day as Joventut was preparing to go to training camp, Rubio was offered a spot on the first team.
In a short matter of time, Rubio made his pro debut in the Spanish Liga ACB. He was the youngest player to ever play in the ACB, age 14. DKV Joventut won the FIBA Eurochallenge that same year.
Rubio’s basketball I.Q. at a young age stood out. He led the Liga ACB in steals (2.6) the following year after making his pro debut and was given the ACB Rising Star Award.
Rubio made his Euroleague debut in 2006 as the fifth-youngest player ever to do so. Although he averaged just over 20 minutes a game for his career, his impact on the court was present. Rubio won the Euroleague title with DKV Joventut in 2008 and was awarded the Euroleague Young Player of the Year award for three consecutive years, becoming the only player in the history of the award to do so (2007, 2008, 2009). Rubio was also voted the best point guard in the Spanish ACB league twice (2008, 2010).
Next up for Rubio was the 2008 Summer Olympics in Bejing. The world was now watching this 17-year-old prodigy point guard suit up for Spain alongside NBA players like Rudy Fernandez, José Calderón and Pau and Marc Gasol. Rubio became the youngest player in Olympic history to start in the basketball gold medal round. Spain took on the United States for the gold and held its own against NBA stars like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony, just to name a few. Spain fell to the USA 118-107 and went home with silver medals. But the buzz around this young Spanish point guard with amazing court vision and playmaking ability was starting to make its way back to the states.
The NBA came calling for Rubio in 2009 as he declared himself eligible for the draft. The “Spanish Pete Maravich” was more than just hair, he had real potential coming into the draft. Speculation about where Rubio could land in the draft was high after teams picking in the lottery got a glimpse of Rubio in the Olympics. The 2009 NBA draft was full of future NBA All-Stars like Blake Griffin, James Harden, Demar Derozan and two-time MVP Steph Curry (who was drafted a few spots behind Rubio). Rubio went fifth overall to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who then also used their sixth overall pick to draft another point guard named Jonny Flynn who was out of the league in just a few short years after an injury derailed his career.
Rubio’s NBA debut hit a snag in 2009 after his contract with DKV Joventut had a buyout clause worth millions in his contract that still had to be settled before he could come to Minnesota. The Timberwolves anticipated Rubio would have to play in Spain for at least one more season in order to cheapen the buyout price or avoid it all together. NBA rules don’t allow teams to spend more than $500,000 towards a player’s buyout. Rubio wanted to leave DKV Joventut regardless of when he could come overseas to the NBA. In 2009, ESPN reported Rubio wouldn’t make it to the Timberwolves until 2011 despite both DKV Joventut and the Timberwolves making a deal to bring Rubio over. Rubio later released a statement saying the following:
“The reason leading me to take this next step is to have a period of preparation to better take the challenge of the NBA in better conditions as a player. The Minnesota Timberwolves continue to be my first option and I wish to play with them in the near future.”
From 2009-2011, Rubio played for Regal FC Barcelona, a powerhouse team in Spain. He helped FC Barcelona win the Euroleague in his first season with the team. His contract with FC Barcelona was for six years with an option to leave the team in 2011 and go to the NBA. Rubio took his option to leave and came to Minnesota to join the team that drafted him two years earlier. The hype followed the Spaniard to the Timberwolves, and in Rubio’s NBA debut, he was an on-court wizard with pinpoint accuracy on his passes to his teammates.
Now in 2017, Rubio was traded from the Timberwolves to the Utah Jazz in exchange for a first-round pick. His new Jazz teammate Joe Ingles played alongside Rubio in Spain and recounted on media day what it was like traveling with Rubio.
“It was kind of like a Justin Bieber thing really. It was like hundreds and hundreds of 12-to-16-year-old girls, he was like 16-17 at that time, literally all screaming his name. If we got in in the afternoon or middle of the night, everywhere we went, screaming his name. It was entertaining.”
Rubio doesn’t have the boyish looks of his youth anymore, but now, after spending six years in the NBA, his game has only improved from when he was sitting in the bleachers in sandals, waiting for his opportunity to shine, to this new chapter in his life as a member of the Utah Jazz.
The Jazz wrapped up their preseason undefeated and will begin the regular season against the Denver Nuggets at home on Wednesday, Oct. 18.
