Free at last, Ricky Rubio ready to start NBA career

RESEDA, Calif. – Sometimes, Ricky Rubio(notes) presses play on those old game DVDs, and his eyes long for the nerve of that 15-year-old flashing across the screen. He watches himself closely – the spontaneity, the boldness, the sheer jubilance of playing basketball. He wants it all again, wants it for good now.

The promise of Rubio’s mid-teens became something of a burden this past year and a half, the pressures of delivering on the extraordinary expectations of his talent had installed a natural hesitation, a paralysis that can come with criticism. For all the hours that he spends studying the greatest point guards of all – Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd(notesand Steve Nash(notes)– the Spanish wunderkind still finds relevance with flashing back to his buoyant younger self, remembering the roots of the sensation of Ricky Rubio. I love sports

 RESEDA, Calif. – Sometimes, Ricky Rubio(notes) presses play on those old game DVDs, and his eyes long for the nerve of that 15-year-old flashing across the screen. He watches himself closely – the spontaneity, the boldness, the sheer jubilance of playing basketball. He wants it all again, wants it for good now.

The promise of Rubio’s mid-teens became something of a burden this past year and a half, the pressures of delivering on the extraordinary expectations of his talent had installed a natural hesitation, a paralysis that can come with criticism. For all the hours that he spends studying the greatest point guards of all – Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd(notesand Steve Nash(notes)– the

Spanish wunderkind still finds relevance with flashing back to his buoyant younger self, remembering the roots of the sensation of Ricky Rubio. I love sports

“I see him, and that kid wasn’t worried about what people were thinking,” Rubio told Yahoo! Sports over lunch. “That kid wasn’t worried about what would happen if he made a mistake. When I’m watching those games, I was playing like I don’t care about nothing. I’m only worried about winning, about helping the team to win.”

The words come out like he’s talking about a different player, in a different time, and sometimes it feels that way. He’s 21 years old, waiting for his rookie season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and he knows that people have come to doubt him now. He knows that they wonder whether he was merely a child star who reached a plateau, leveled and perhaps will never justify his selection as the fifth overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft.

Only, Rubio knows something else: That past year on the Spanish national team in the European championships, a lost season of injuries and inconsistency for Barcelona Regal could turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to him. There was turbulence, adversity.

“The game tested me,” he says. “I think I needed that.”