Ricky Rubio will not be at the Basketball World Cup. The Catalan point guard is provisionally away from the courts to focus on his mental health. «I have decided to stop my professional activity to take care of my mental health. I want to thank all the support I have received from the FEB to understand my decision. Today La Familia makes more sense than ever. Thank you. I would ask that my privacy be respected to be able to face these moments and to be able to give more information when the time is right,” explained the Cleveland Cavaliers player in a statement released by the Spanish Basketball Federation.
Absent in the first friendly preparation against Venezuela at the WiZink Center in Madrid, Ricky Rubio had not participated in the last training sessions at the Golden Triangle facilities either, after informing the federative officials of his situation and leaving the team concentration national at the Meliá Castilla hotel in the capital. For this reason, the point guard did not attend the first preparation game for the World Cup along with the rest of those discarded by Scariolo for the duel: Sergio Llull, Álex Abrines, Rudy Fernández and Willy Hernangómez.
This being the case, the Spanish team is left without its starting game director, a key piece in the framework of the current European and world champion. Ricky Rubio was the MVP of that second global crown four years ago in China. He was not in the Eurobasket conquered by Spain in 2022 due to the serious injury to the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee that he suffered in December 2021 during a game with the Cavs, but his return in January of this year invited optimism.
The absence of the one who by his own merits has become a natural leader within the Spanish team is a significant sporting setback on the floor, but mainly a blow to the mood for a dressing room that did not hesitate to show its support for the player. As it could not be otherwise, managers, coaching staff and players established their health as a priority above any other consideration and supported their partner. «In La Familia, people have always come before results. All my love and support for Ricky, and my admiration for his transparency and through it his ability, once again, to lead by example”, said the coach, Sergio Scariolo.
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“Never too high, never too low… RR”, said Willy Hernangómez, MVP of Eurobasket 2022 and another of the heavyweights in the Spanish team. The new Barça center used the phrase that Ricky Rubio uses as his life motto as a message of encouragement. And it is that he is an atypical player, with a deep personality, very marked by the death of his mother, Tona Vives, in May 2016 due to lung cancer.
The mournful event affected him deeply, causing him depression. “For most of the year after he died, he was angry. He blamed many things. He blamed basketball. He blamed the people around me for how I felt. I blamed everything. I went through a depression », he wrote in 2019 in an emotional letter published in The Players’ Tribune.
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In a heartbreaking confession, the player recalls the difficulty managing his emotions at that time, when he was still a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves: “When someone you love dies, it’s like a mist envelops you. So it was for me. I felt directionless. The first season after he died, I would wake up and think about calling her. He made me want to break my phone. But I couldn’t delete her number. I even texted him sometimes. I still do it. For a while, I felt like he was driving me crazy, like he was talking to myself.”
“The first season after she died, I would wake up and think about calling her. She made me want to break my phone”
And it is that Ricky Rubio, first a great promise when he was a child and then a fundamental figure in Spanish basketball, has also become a benchmark when it comes to giving visibility to mental health problems among young athletes, subjected to suffocating pressure top-level competition and the media spotlight. “I didn’t know how to fix it on my own. I learned that when I finally received help, when I went to talk to a therapist,” he acknowledged at the time, emphasizing the importance of professional help to overcome the most delicate emotional moments.
Since then, as a memory and tribute, he has worn the most special tattoo on his right arm, along his biceps and part of his forearm: a lioness accompanied by her cub, which is complemented by a rose and the phrase ‘With you went so much of me’ (‘With you he left so much of me’).
Ricky Rubio’s loss opens a hole in the point guard position and forces the studious Scariolo to pull the umpteenth rabbit out of his hat. In the Eurobasket he did not have the one from El Masnou either but he recruited Lorenzo Brown for the cause. Now he cannot turn to the Maccabi Tel-Aviv player either and therefore he is forced to make bobbin lace with the pieces he has in the 1 position -Alberto Díaz and the young talent Juan Núñez-, in addition to two combos such as Sergio Llull and Jaime Fernández, scoring guards but also game generators.
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