Suddenly, on the eve of Virtus Bologna’s visit (this Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.), the Palau Blaugrana lights up.
He does it between the noise of the parquet, which creaks under the footsteps of the giants, and between the noise of cranes and cement plants, which come and go outside. Barça is under construction.
Three dozen journalists fill out the forms and request an audience with the basketball section, as they have found out that Ricky Rubio (33), legend of the discipline, a player who has been training behind the scenes for six months, struggling with a personal crisis in the form of depression. , he trains as a Barcelona player.
The situation is a paused tempo, perhaps the embryo of a third change in the entity, as Ricky Rubio is an essential basketball player and blue-green basketball is looking for its own identity, a franchise player relaunching the section, today a roller coaster that generates gorgeous moments and questionable others.
When the Palau Blaugrana finally opens its doors, and the reporters waiting in the adjoining room look out into the stands, all eyes focus on Ricky Rubio, who is wearing the Barça uniform, appears relaxed and concentrated among his potential teammates and shoots to the basket from the three-point zone.
One inside, and another and another.
He scores with ease, receives from Jabari Parker and scores again.
-If Ricky Rubio had to play right now, would he be in a position to do so? -Roger Grimau, the Barça coach, is later asked.
-Let me think about the answer because I have to be careful with the headline. Physically he is fine and in shape – Grimau hesitates.
Nervous laughter in the press room.
By then, Ricky Rubio is already in the shower.
He left before his companions, escorted by the section’s press officer, because today the man does not speak, today he does not play.
He is not yet a Barça player, this is just the origin of a process.
-What I am is happy to see him on a track. It is a step forward in your recovery process. I am happy as a person, apart from as an institution and club. “I’m happy that you counted on us for this recovery process,” says Roger Grimau, who endures the downpour: he answers a dozen questions, only a couple of them refer to the game against Virtus.
(“We are directly tied with Virtus, we play at home and we ask for the energy of our people,” he answers in one of them; both teams have fifteen wins and eight losses, they are second and third in the regular phase).
-But has any decision been made regarding Ricky Rubio?
-We have not talked about any return. We have only offered you our facilities. Good players always add, in any circumstance. Plus, it’s easy with him: before he finishes the sentence he already knows what I’m going to say, because he has a lot of basketball. And if they are also excellent as a person, as is your case, the decision is very easy. But the word of the day is normality, this is how we take this situation inside, no matter how much hustle and bustle is generated outside.
The hustle and bustle is inevitable.
Ricky Rubio, MVP of the 2019 Basketball World Cup, NBA star (until a month ago he was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers), has been out of the scene for six months. The crisis comes from last summer. Concentrated with the Spanish team in Madrid, on the eve of the last World Cup, a depressive process took him away.
“My mind went to a dark place,” he said a month ago, in a statement announcing his goodbye to the NBA.
Twelve years he has spent on the other side of the pond, a dance of travel and emergencies that has undermined his mental health. Saturated, he has lived the last few weeks in Maresme, confined with his wife and his son, Liam (4), focused on family, meditation, golf and bodybuilding, decongesting from basketball.
-If he plays again, it will not be in the NBA. “It will be near here,” his father, Esteve Rubio, told La Vanguardia weeks ago.
The possibility is taking shape now.
-From the first day I am here I have always told you that it is not that we need a special piece, but we are attentive to the things that come on the market. If Ricky Rubio comes, it will not be because of his basic profile. If he were a four or a five he would also be with us – says Roger Grimau, who thus covers his base’s back.
“It hasn’t been a normal training session, a new boy has come that we all appreciate,” says Nicolás Laprovittola, Barça guard. But the training had real match situations and it was a good session. I have seen Ricky Rubio very well. He knows the club (he was a Barça player between 2009 and 2011, before going to the NBA) and he knows where he is coming from. We also know what person he is. He has the time and we support him in everything because the person goes ahead of the player. He is big enough and smart enough not to rush.