Basketball Fiend

The rumors are true. Ricky Rubio will be forgoing the NBA and staying in Spain for another two years.

According to Charley Waters of the Pioneer Press,

The Minnesota Timberwolves’ top draft pick, Ricky Rubio, 18, will remain in Spain to play for his DKV Joventut basketball team for the remaining two years of his contract rather than try to move to the NBA this season, El Periodico reported today.

The Barcelona newspaper also says Rubio, who was paid $97,000 last season, plans to withdraw his contract lawsuit against DKV Joventut.

That sound you hear? Yeah, that’s the Kings front office, exhaling in relief.

Tyreke Evans wasn’t such a bad pick after all.

Charlie Villanueva is one of my favorite athletes to follow on Twitter. (Yes, this is the world we live in. Get over it, anti-social networkers.) He’s honest, funny, and likes to stay connected to his fans. Which makes him endearing. Also, cool. And a man of the people.

Plus, he was the first professional player to tweet from a locker room during halftime; making him the best NBA trailblazer since Clyde Drexler. (A Clyde the Glide reference. See what Twitter can do for your rep?)

I tend to root for guys like that. So, obviously, I’ve taken an interest in Villanueva’s free agent status.

On Monday, the Milwaukee Bucks decided not to make Villanueva a qualifying offer. Which basically means the Bucks don’t want him and he’s free to sign with any other team in the league. (You can bet Scott Skiles had something to do with this decision. No more locker room tweets in Milwaukee, I guess.)

So who’s in the running to sign our favorite free agent Twitterer?

Well, Cleveland for one.

Rumor has it that the Cavs are interested in Villanueva and that Villanueva is interested in the Cavs (by Twitter, of course). It’s a good fit. Cleveland needs a power forward who can stretch the floor offensively, and Villanueva is that type of forward. Plus, Villanueva is friends with Mo Williams from their days together in Milwaukee and he also knows LeBron James from the post-high school All-Star game circuit.

The Cavs can offer the mid-level exception (expected to be right around $5.8 million) to a free agent this offseason, which is right in Villanueva’s wheelhouse. The qualifying offer Milwaukee should would have offerered him was $4.6 million.

Seems like a done deal, right?

Well, not so fast.

The Pistons are on the hunt for a starting power forward and have $17-19 million available to make it happen. Some of that money will of course be ear-marked for Ben Gordon, the Pistons’ number one offseason target, but Villanueva is also on Detroit’s radar. Especially because Carlos Boozer has decided not to opt out of his contract and, instead, will be staying with the Jazz for another year. (Boozer had previously been Detroit’s primary target at power forward.)

Detroit has the cash. Cleveland has the connections. And both teams have a need to fill at the power forward spot.

It’s a close race for Villanueva’s services. It could go either way. So I’m leaving it up to you, Basketball Fiend readers.

Where will Charlie Villanueva play next season?

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Joe Lee joins me for the fourth edition of the Basketball Fiend podcast. It’s one of the more argumentative podcasts we’ve had. The gloves come off as we break down the draft, including potential busts and potential Rookies of the Year.

There’s a lot of material to cover, so you get some bonus material in this podcast. It clocks in just under 50 minutes.

Here’s a quick rundown of the subjects we cover in the fourth podcast:

1. Potential busts in the lottery
2. Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis in the same backcourt, how’s that going to work out?
3. James Harden’s bow tie
4. Why did David Kahn select two point guards with consecutive picks in the draft?
5. Will Ricky Rubio play in the NBA next season?
6. Terrence Williams in New Jersey, Stephen Curry in Golden State, Tyreke Evans in Sacramento, Jrue Holiday in Philly, and Eric Maynor in Utah? Good fits for the teams that drafted them?
7. What was Cleveland thinking taking Christian Eyenga with the 30th pick in the draft?
8. If the Minnesota Timberwolves were a car, what car would they be?
9. Handicapping odds for the 2009-10 Rookie of the Year race. Who are the favorites? Who are the dark horses?
10. Is Tyreke Evans a Rookie of the Year candidate?
11. John Wall and the best players in the 2010 draft
12. The draft pick whose shoes you most want to be in going into the 2010 season

Hope you enjoy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Photo: ESPN.com

The Houston Chronicle revealed on Monday that the future may be grim for star Rockets center Yao Ming. According to Rockets team physician Tom Clanton, “the hairline fracture in Yao Ming’s left foot not only has failed to heal as expected but has gotten worse.” This affects not only Yao’s ability to play next season, but perhaps his ability to play in the league ever again.

As Chronicle writer Jonathan Feigen puts it,

Yao could choose to immobilize the foot again, and he would be thrilled if instead of the eight weeks the Rockets thought it would take for the bone to heal, it took 16, or 24.

Still, it feels as if that is hoping for a long, long shot to come through.

Yao is off looking for medical options because of something the team did not release when the CT scan last week revealed that the bone did not heal as expected.

Yahoo! Sports writer Adrian Wojnarowski sheds a darker light on the uncertainty surrounding Yao’s injury, saying, “The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer.”

Always the man with a connection, Woj quotes fellow NBA executives with knowledge of the situation, at least one of whom is quick to offer a dour analysis. “The realization has hit them that this is grave,” says one of Wojnarowski’s sources. Says another,

“It sounds like he’s missing most of next season, if not the entire 82 games. That’s all that [the Rockets] will concede quietly, but they know it’s probably much worse.”

Speculation like this is in no way absolute (”probably worse” is a very open-ended statement), but it’s not a good sign that the Rockets are sending Yao to see three more specialists this week, which is what Feigen alludes to in the Chronicle article.

Second, third, and fourth opinions are generally reserved for dire situations.

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Last year Adam Yauch (better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys) released a documentary about eight high school basketball players who travel to Rucker Park in New York to play in the Elite 24 (a game showcasing the best high school players in the nation). You may have heard of a few of these guys. Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Jerryd Bayless, Kyle Singler, Lance Stephenson. Some are playing in the NBA. Others were drafted in Thursday night’s draft. Others will be in the NBA soon.

I know I’m a year late on this, but the documentary was terrific. It captured not only the meaning of Rucker Park, but also the perspectives of some of the best young basketball players in the country.

Of particular interest to me: Tyreke Evans and Donte Greene, two of the hottest basketball prospects in the nation in 2007 (when the doc was filmed). Now both of them are Sacramento Kings.

As a Kings fan trying to figure out why the Kings drafted Evans over Ricky Rubio, watching interviews with Evans as a high schooler was enlightening; the basketball equivalent of reading a Rolling Stone feature on a favorite band. It sounds weird, but watching Yauch’s doc was like getting to know Evans for the first time. I learned more about him in this hour and thirty-six minute documentary than in all of the nationally-televised college games, YouTube clips, and Internet features combined.

If you’re a basketball fan and you have an hour and a half to kill this weekend, I highly recommend watching Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot. You can catch it on Hulu or, if you want a more permanent copy, you can order it from the Gunnin’ Movie website.

If not, I’ve got you covered. After the jump you’ll find a quick breakdown of each player (Greene, Bayless, Love, Jennings, Singler, Beasley, Evans, and Stephenson) and what the documentary teaches us about him.

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It is well-known that NBA MVP LeBron James is good friends with hip hop icon Jay-Z. So it should come as no surprise that LeBron is featured in Jay-Z’s newest music video: D.O.A. (Death of Autotune). What is a surprise, though, is that LeBron and Jay are shown playing one-on-one in the video.

I have a lot of respect for Jay (and the new video is dope), but he has no business setting foot on the court with LeBron, let alone playing him one-on-one. Jay-Z couldn’t beat King James in basketball even if he had Nas, Kanye, AND Memphis Bleek on the court to help him. So putting him mano-a-mano with The Great One is downright blasphemous.

Stick to what you do best, Jay. Rapping, taking vacations with Beyonce, and playing cards with Harvey Keitel.

Leave basketball to the real ballers.

I’ve been reading all kinds of reports about Ricky Rubio this weekend.

Frank Isola of the NY Daily News reports that the Rockets offered the Timberwolves Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks in exchange for Rubio. Minnesota reportedly declined the offer. Which means the Knicks have little hope of securing Rubio, given that their leading offer so far is Wilson Chandler. That doesn’t stop NYPost.com from speculating that the Knicks are the “favorites” to land Rubio if David Kahn decides to trade him.

Meanwhile, Rubio has also received offers to play for Real Madrid and a club team in Turkey. Offers like those will make it difficult for Kahn to keep Rubio in Minnesota this season, as he is reportedly trying to do.

Though it is the opinion of TwinCities.com writer Charley Waters, who reported on Rubio’s visit to Minnesota on Saturday, that Rubio “agree to the amount and get a lucrative NBA career started”, it obviously will not be as simple as that.

Rubio, and Kahn, have a number of different options to weigh. Not one of which is cut-and-dry. (Especially given that, if he plays for the Timberwolves this season, Rubio will have to share the backcourt with Jonny Flynn, Minnesota’s #6 pick on draft night).

So what’s your opinion, Basketball Fiend readers?

Where will Ricky Rubio play next year?

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