Cavs: New PG Ricky Rubio was phenomenal at Summer Olympics

The Cleveland Cavaliers made a draft day trade last month, sending out Taurean Prince and a second round pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves. In return the Cavs added Ricky Rubio, a 30 year old point guard from El Masnou, Spain.

The onetime top-5 pick has had a long and productive career, even if he didn’t reach the heights many expected when he was a teenage phenom playing in Europe. Even so Rubio is second in Timberwolves history in total assists and steals, and just last year started 51 games and averaged another 6.4 assists per game.

Rubio also shot 38.8 percent from the field and averaged just 8.6 points per game, a career low. He shot 30.8 percent from 3-point range, a disappointment after he hit 36.1 percent the year before in Phoenix. The Cavs and there fans had to be wondering if Rubio still had something left in the tank to offer them.

Ricky Rubio answered the call in the Summer Olympics, playing like an All-Star for the Spanish National Team

Ricky Rubio has been playing with the Spanish National Team in international basketball competitions for a long time. His first Olympic appearance was in 2008, when the 17 year old became the youngest player ever to play in an Olympic basketball gold medal game. Rubio, along with Spanish stalwarts such as Pau and Marc Gasol, Jose Calderon and Rudy Fernandez, brought home the silver medal that year.

Since he has continued to improve and become one of the leaders of the Spanish team, running their offense and growing as a scorer. Something about wearing his country’s flag on his jersey propels him to new scoring heights and gives him confidence to shoot from outside.

At the 2019 FIBA World Cup in Beijing, China, Rubio was the driving force behind Spain winning the title. He averaged 16.4 points and 6.0 assists per game and hit 38.7 percent of his 3-pointers, and was named to the World Cup All-Star Five.

With Team USA looking vulnerable heading into the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics (held in 2021, of course) Spain had a chance to repeat as champions, but faced a loaded field to do so. That included a loaded group for the Spaniards: a veteran Argentina team that was the last country to win a gold medal other than the Americans; the host Japanese nation led by national hero Rui Hachimura; and Slovenia, which was 13-0 when Luka Doncic played in his career.

Spain beat Japan and Argentina but lost a tough battle with Slovenia, which placed it second in its group and lined up a showdown with Team USA, which struggled early this summer but found its stride late midway through group play.

The game, held just after midnight in the early hours of Tuesday for those of us here in the US and midday there in Tokyo, was a hard-fought affair. Spain went up by double digits early before the United States roared back to tie the game at the half. In the second half it was touch-and-go before a big fourth quarter saw USA pull away and ultimately win one of the tighter 95-81 games you will ever see.

Spain was held in the game on back of one player: Ricky Rubio. The veteran guard dropped 38 points on the Americans, the most ever by an opposing player in Team USA history. He shot 4-of-7 from 3-point range; the rest of the team shot a combined 3-for-16 (19 percent). Rubio was confident firing the ball, and he found seams in the American defense to glide to the rim or even bully his way through smaller defenders to clear space for a shot inside.

It was the end of the Olympics for Spain, but a capstone for a virtuoso performance from Rubio. He averaged 25.5 points per game in Tokyo, second only to Doncic in the entire field. Despite being the engine of his team’s offense he also set up teammates well, his six assists per game fourth in the field. He hit 47.8 percent of his 3-pointers for the tournament.

As is the case with many international players, Rubio might just be putting on the superhero cape when he’s playing for his home country and is forced to leave the cape and the superpowers at home when he plays in the NBA. If he scored 38 points in a game it would be his new career high.

Yet what it does illustrate is that Rubio still has plenty to offer the Cavaliers. He doesn’t need to carry the offense; he just needs to direct it, and have enough off-ball shooting confidence to let the ball fly when it swings to him. His defensive chops should allow him and Darius Garland to play some minutes together, and if something of his hot shooting from Tokyo persists then he can punish teams that give him too much space.

The Cavs and their fans were supposed to have one of their own to cheer on in the Olympics, but Kevin Love withdrew his name and went home. Darius Garland was a logical option to replace Bradley Beal, but the team went with more size (and probably a dollop of nepotism from head coach Gregg Popovich) and chose Keldon Johnson. Cedi Osman and Turkey didn’t make it out of qualifying.

Instead the Cavs were gifted a new player to root for in Ricky Rubio, and he put on quite the performance for his new fans. Superman may not come back to Cleveland after a summer displaying his powers, but if Cleveland could get Superboy, or eve Krypto, then it makes the upcoming season that much more exciting.