Ricky Rubio has decided to stop. Through a statement published by the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB), the point guard from El Masnou has announced this Saturday that he is temporarily stopping his professional activity to take care of 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
Rubio has already placed himself in the hands of professionals, as he had done before, to try to recover mentally. According to sources consulted by La Vanguardia, he began to feel strange in the United States, but he was confident that the national team, as on so many other occasions, would help him enjoy basketball again. However, this feeling has not accompanied him this time.
The federation wanted to show “its respect, admiration and affection for Ricky Rubio” and assured that “LaFamilia will be by the player’s side at all times.”
The Cleveland Cavaliers point guard did not appear in the friendly that the Spanish team played on Friday against Venezuela in Madrid (87-57), a match to prepare for the World Cup that will be played in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia from August 25 to August 2. September. Rubio left the concentration of the Spanish team led by Sergio Scariolo last Wednesday.
Rubio, who returned to the slopes in January 2023 after more than a year off due to a cruciate ligament injury in his left knee, had been focused on Madrid with the team to prepare for the World Cup since July 27. Ricky, 32, will now focus on the family leaving basketball aside.
After the presentation of the team that day, the man from Barcelona assured that he had returned to the team “with a great desire to train” and to play a new world championship, after having been chosen the Most Valuable Player of the 2019 China edition, when Spain was crowned against Argentina.
Also recently, before joining the national team, the point guard admitted that despite still having a contract with the American Cleveland franchise, his time in the NBA “was ending” and he was still considering his return to Europe, although it would depend on his physical condition. and mind.
“I’ve been there for twelve years and my idea when I left was to play in Europe again, I don’t know what situation I’ll be in physically and mentally and if I’ll want to play, but hey, my NBA stage is coming to an end,” he advanced on June 10 when He attended the Endesa League semifinal match between his former team, Joventut, and Real Madrid.
Born in the Barcelona town of El Masnou (October 21, 1990), Rubio has played in the NBA since 2011, which he came to after playing for Juventut and Barcelona in the ACB and in which he has been part of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns, Indiana Pacers and Cleveland Cavaliers, to which he was transferred in 2021, while participating in the Tokyo Olympics.
Months later, his career was abruptly cut short on December 28, 2021 when, in the final stretch of the fourth period of a game between the Cavaliers and the New Orleans Pelicans, he twisted his left knee, causing his cruciate ligament to tear.
The injury caused him to remain out for more than a year and miss the 2022 Eurbasket, in which Spain won the title by defeating France in the final. He returned to the courts on January 13, in a game on the field of the Blazers (113-119), in which he scored 9 points, 3 rebounds and an assist during the 10 minutes he was on the court.
His presence in Spain’s squad for the next World Cup was one of the main novelties on Scariolo’s list, who defined him as “one of the greats of the team, who continues to be fully efficient, who has an important commitment, who has months working to get to the concentration in good condition”.
Trained in the youth ranks of El Masnou Básquetbol and the lower categories of Joventut de Badalona, ??Rubio was the youngest player to participate in an ACB match at the age of 14 years, eleven months and twenty-four days, on October 15, 2005.
In July 2018, he presented “The Ricky Rubio Foundation”, with the aim of helping the most vulnerable children and young people (without resources or disabled) and for the fight and prevention of cancer, a disease from which his mother died in May 2016. , at the age of 56, after trying to overcome lung cancer since 2012.
In 2019 he produced a documentary about a child with cancer and a player on the Mataró basketball team and the following year he launched a new waiting room for cancer patients at the Can Ruti hospital in Badalona (Barcelona). For his charitable work, the NBA awarded him the ‘NBA Cares Community Assist’ award in November 2021.
