# The Death of Ricky Rubio



## Bubbles (Nov 12, 2005)

> On August 27, 1946, in a minor bullring in Linares, a Podunk lead-mining town in southern Spain, Manuel Laureano Rodriguez, known as Manolete, was mortally wounded, gored in the right leg by a nasty bull that insisted on radically departing from the script. Manolete was the son, grandson, nephew, and great-nephew of toreros, but as a child he was a bookworm mama's boy with little interest in going outside, much less in staring down bulls with a cape and a sword. But from 1939 on, he became a legend. He had affairs with beautiful actresses, palled around with both Picasso and Franco (separately; Picasso and Franco were not pals), and captivated a nation with old-school "passing." He brought back classics like the "manoletina," where he turned his back to the bull and used his muleta to bring the animal into his body, spinning away as the horns rushed within centimeters of his waist. Even dolled up in pink silk with bespoke socks from Barcelona, Manolete embodied the ideal of the true Spaniard: sangfroid punctuated with a magician's flair when confronted with angry beasts 10 times his size. But it was all over when Islero caught him in the Andalusian heat of that August afternoon. The crowd yelped and then fell into a guilty silence. Manolete was dragged away to the ring infirmary. The finest horn doctor in Spain came down from Madrid to lead an all-night vigil. At 5 a.m. a priest delivered last rites. Manolete died later in the day on the 28th. He was 30 years old. On the orders of Generalissimo Franco himself, state radio played only funeral dirges for days afterward. It was the end of an era. The last great bullfighter was dead. A nation mourned.
> 
> And that's exactly how every basketball fan in Minnesota felt when Ricky Rubio tore the ACL in his left knee on March 9, 2012:1 Wolves Nation mourned. With Kevin Love playing out of his mind in Ricky's absence, the team clung to the frame of the playoff picture for two weeks after The Injury, before completely falling off by the end of the month. But losing Ricky goes deeper than the lost chance to sneak into the postseason as an 8-seed.
> Minnesotans may not have that exact same Spanish duende — we don't have the same aficionados, like a Lorca or a Hemingway, to put this into context — but we can feel sorry for ourselves with the best of them. We're the home of the Minnesota Vikings. Native son Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks, the greatest breakup album of all time, in a south Minneapolis studio. And we gave the world F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote fatalist shit like, "The sentimental person thinks things will last — the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't." So in a way, we're strangely equipped for this kind of mini-tragedy.
> ...


http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7780080/the-loss-ricky-rubio-minnesota-timberwolves


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## doctordrizzay (May 10, 2011)

He will never be the same. ACL is probably the worst injury in sports.


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## Dissonance (Jul 21, 2004)

doctordrizzay said:


> He will never be the same. ACL is probably the worst injury in sports.


I can think of a few worse.


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## Laker Freak (Jul 1, 2003)

It seems like ACL injuries aren't as serious as they were 10-15 years ago. The last guy I can think of who really had his career derailed by a knee injury was Shaun Livingston.


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## Bubbles (Nov 12, 2005)

Dissonance said:


> I can think of a few worse.


Achilles is one. Or like Laker Freak mentioned, Shaun Livingston's was much worse.


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