Ricky Rubio is a basketball wizard. Say what you will about the Utah Jazz guard's career to date: He hasn't come close to living up to pre-draft hype; eight years into his NBA tenure, he still can't shoot or finish around the basket; and reasonable minds can disagree about the extent of his positive impact on the game. Fine. Anyone disagreeing with those assertions is fooling themselves or intentionally pushing an agenda way or another.
All that said, there are still few players in the NBA who possess the vision, confidence, and playmaking ingenuity to delight with the pass like Rubio, as he did with this bullet behind-the-back dime to Derrick Favors against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night.
Rubio behind-the-back dime to Favors!#TeamIsEverything 108#TrueToAtlanta 107
2:12 left in the 4th Q: https://t.co/cb8TXyNer6 pic.twitter.com/5T86Doppv1
— NBA (@NBA) March 22, 2019
We'll let Jazz color man, and former forward with their late 1990s NBA Finals teams, Matt Harpring do the audible jaw-dropping for us: “Oh oh! Ha ha ha!”
Unfortunately for Utah, Harpring wasn't laughing by the time Thursday's game was finished. The Hawks, who surrendered a double-digit halftime lead in the opening minutes of the third quarter, fought their way back in the final stanza to beat the Jazz 117-114. Rubio had 17 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and two steals on 6-of-10 shooting in the loss, which pushes Utah to seventh in the packed bottom half of the Western Conference playoff standings.