Ricky Rubio’s sensational rookie season has come to a devastatingly abrupt end.
The Minnesota Timberwolves point guard will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee, the team announced on Saturday. Now the upstart Wolves will have to keep chasing a playoff berth without one of the players who was most responsible for the franchise’s resurgence.
“I feel bad for Ricky having to miss the rest of this season,” Wolves president David Kahn said in a statement. “But Ricky is a competitor, and I am confident that he will work hard to get back on the court next year and continue his progression as one of the top point guards in our league.”
It also means that Rubio will miss the upcoming Olympics, where he was expected to be a vital part of Spain’s bid for the gold medal.
Rubio went down in the closing seconds of a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night, when his knee buckled as he tried to help out on defense against Kobe Bryant.
There were plenty of long faces in the Wolves locker room after the game and not just because they lost their 18th straight to the Lakers.
Rubio had an MRI on Saturday that revealed the torn ligament, sucking the wind out of a team that had been brimming with confidence thanks in part to his flashy passing that energized a club that lost 132 games over the previous two seasons.
In his first season after coming from Spain, the 21-year-old was averaging 10.6 points and 8.2 assists, but his impact has been so much greater than his numbers.
The floppy-haired, irrepressible young point guard changed the dynamic of a rebuilding team almost from the moment he set foot in Minnesota. His unselfish play galvanized his teammates and his fun-loving nature has been an immediate draw at the box office, where the Timberwolves have already sold out seven games this season, their most since 2006-2007.
Rubio was the fifth overall pick in 2009, but stayed in Spain for contractual reasons. His decision to come over this season is one of the biggest reasons for the franchise’s quick turnaround this year — along with the addition of coach Rick Adelman and Love’s emergence as an elite player.
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