What role will Ricky Rubio play in Oklahoma City?

"What a business ...", wrote

when he learned that he was transferred to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

What a business this in which a year and a half ago he was a player for the Utah Jazz;

where the surprise signing of

by Barça caused a butterfly effect that upset the agreement he had with the Pacers;

where, despite finishing on the rebound in Phoenix, he ended up signing his best season in the NBA;

What a business this where, after being a key player in the resurrection of the team, he packs up again.

Where even now, just a month away from starting, it can be clear that the course is going to start in Oklahoma.

For some time now, Ricky Rubio has been repeating a life motto on his social networks: 'Never too high, never too low'.

He wrote it just after winning the World Cup with Spain and proclaiming himself MVP of the tournament and after being left out of the playoffs last season.

At 30 years old, more than half his life as a professional athlete, he knows well that he should not get carried away by good or bad times.

That today can be praised as one of the keys for the Phoenix Suns to become a respectable team again, and tomorrow to be used as a bargaining chip.

What is important is the teaching that he draws from them.

Ricky Rubio came to the Suns to cover the "huge hole" they had at point guard.

The quotation mark is the team's sports director, who saw in him someone "capable of controlling a team, of directing it."

"With him, I hope the young people in the team take a big step forward."

And the Catalan complied.

Above his 13 points and 8.8 assists (4th in the NBA), he provided direction and leadership to the team that had won the fewest games in the previous four years.

The 8-0 with which they closed their passage through the Disney bubble seemed the prelude to a perhaps bright future of which Ricky will no longer be part.

Key in phoenix

Rubio was two fundamental things for the Suns: the reflection of

on the court and the director that the team needed to free its star,

, an extraordinary scorer who the previous season had to do point guard for lack of alternatives. .

The benefit was mutual: Ricky, in a faster game system and surrounded by good shooters, found an ideal context;

and Booker, more downloaded, shone at his best, scoring.

"He's brought me here," Booker said of Ricky Rubio after being selected for the All-Star for the first time in his career.

"He's incredible. He's been a great signing for the team. He's helped me develop my game in a tremendous way. He deserves a lot of credit."

Not bad for the one who, according to an ESPN network survey of 20 NBA coaches, executives and scouts in 2019, had been the worst signing of the summer.

Because yes, after all, the business is not badly paid: Ricky Rubio signed a contract of 51 million dollars for three seasons.

The Catalan point guard has delivered, but to try to climb the next step, the Phoenix Suns have put the team in the hands of one of the best directors in modern history,

, rehabilitated after an outstanding campaign in the Thunder.

Ricky in Oklahoma

The first eight years of a good NBA player's career (nine in the case of the stars) are in the hands of the team that selects them in the first round of the draft: when they finish their first contract, all are subject to the right of first refusal .

In his case, Ricky, after eight seasons waiting to be able to choose his own destiny, has seen how a stroke of bad luck overthrew his first option and, after a good year at the next stop, he is sent back to a franchise that has not chosen.

And given the Thunder's situation, it might not be the last time he's packed.

After revitalizing the Phoenix Suns, Ricky Rubio comes to a team that has entered a rebuilding period: dismantling a squad that made it into the playoffs by surprise to start building another project from the ground up.

, one of the NBA's most active (and skilled) managers, has already packed two of its best players (Paul and

, who will go to the Lakers) and everything indicates that Ricky is still in the showcase, available for the highest bidder.

Meanwhile, Ricky Rubio can serve as a crutch for

, one of the best point

projects in the NBA, who already last year showed that he performs better with a game director at his side.

It would be one of the few consolations in a team that, except for a script twist, will fight in the lower part of the table.

Despite signing his best year in the NBA, Rubio will have to live again with rumors about his future, as in his last months in Minnesota.

Then, shortly after they sent him to Utah, he explained it with that philosophy that he has made his own: "It's hard but we are professionals and we have to know that they do it because they want the best for their team. Perhaps the destination was not there. we will see".

'Never too high, never too low'.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• Ricky Rubio

• NBA

NBA 2019 - 2020Death of Sid Hartman, the journalist who 'created' the Lakers

NBA 2019 - 2020The NBA and televisions press to start the season at Christmas

NBALa NBA returns for Christmas: dates and keys to the new season after only 71 days of rest

See links of interest

• Last minute

• Spanish translator

• Programming

• 2020 calendar

• Movies Today

• Topics

• Rafael Nadal - Dominic Thiem, live

• TD Systems Baskonia - Fenerbahce Istanbul

• Spain - Germany, live

• Valencia Basket - Panathinaikos