LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, James Harden, what do these three people have in common? From a basketball point of view, in addition to being the superstars of the league, it seems that the 3 people do not have anything in common; but from the perspective of commercial value, there may be a little bit of tacky similarity:
Yes, these 3 players have a common new name "Mr. Billion" - James and Nike signed a sky-high lifetime contract, while Wade and Li Ning, Harden and Adi have signed contracts worth more than 100 million. In addition, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Derrick Rose are also mr. billionaires of their respective brands; but in fact, there is another person in the league, who was once a new star of the brand's attention, but because of the limitations of personal playing style, he gradually became the most non-existent Mr. Billion dollar in history! He's Utah Jazz point guard Ricky Rubio.
Who is Rubio? The Spanish Golden Boy and once the star of hope in European basketball! Because of his gorgeous playing style and super high appearance, Rubio has already made a name for himself in Europe at the age of 16, and shocked the world when he went to the Beijing Olympics at the age of 18!
In 2009, the Timberwolves did not hesitate to choose him with the 5th pick and regarded him as the team's hope; the same is true of Adidas.
In his first season in the NBA, Rubio scored amazing point guard stats; as a first-year student, Rubio demonstrated historic passing skills, which coincided with Adidas's strategic direction at the time! So in the second year, Adi spent a high price to recruit Rubio from Nike, and the extent of the generous shot shocked many people - 12 years and 100 million US dollars! This was the second contract of Adidas after Rose at that time, but at that time Rose was already the MVP of the league, and Rubio was only a second-year student!
Adidas once believed that Rubio's future was unlimited; but unfortunately, Rubio's most criticized shots have not changed since the beginning! The Timberwolves couldn't bear it anymore and chose to send him to the Utah Jazz; in the Jazz, Rubio was just the team's starting point guard, and the team was dominated by The same Donovan Mitchell, who now has autographed shoes, but Rubio has never seen a continuation outside of the adidas crazy light 3 pe.
Rubio, who is only 29 years old now, seems to have lost his way, and it is no wonder that people have slowly forgotten such a billion-dollar gentleman; Rubio, who has a fatal technical defect, was once signed by Adi for a lot of money, and I don't know if they have regrets it now?