James: Rubio's game has an NBA maturity

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: October 30, 2009 - 11:28 PM

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WOLVES NOTES

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Timberwolves fans haven't yet seen hide nor hair of lottery draft pick Ricky Rubio, and won't do so for at least two more years.

LeBron James has.

The Cleveland Cavaliers star faced Rubio twice in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where James' U.S. team played Rubio's Spanish national team twice. In the second meeting, Rubio started at age 17 in the gold medal game for injured Jose Calderon and didn't play a lick like his age.

"He's a really good push guard," James said when asked about Rubio's NBA prospects. "He's very smart. He has been playing professionally for a long time now over in the Euroleague and on the Spanish national team. He looked good against us. He was very under control. You can tell he has been doing this for a while."

Rubio chose to stay home in Barcelona for at least the next two (and possibly three) seasons after the Wolves reached a contract buyout with his former club team.

"It helps when every summer you get a chance to play with Rudy and Pau and Jose and the rest of those guys," James said, referring to Rubio's national-team teammates Rudy Fernandez, Pau Gasol and Calderon (NBA players all). "That definitely helps his maturity. When you get to a certain age, it doesn't matter. When you get to 17, 18 years old, you can play with grown-ups, you can play with 25-year-olds.

"He's going to be really good, and they should look forward to it."

Ramping up

Wolves coach Kurt Rambis received permission from the team's medical staff to bump Al Jefferson's minutes from the 25 minutes he received in Wednesday's opener.

"Whatever it takes to win, whatever he can handle at this point, conditioning-wise," Rambis said before the game. "We're just going to add a few more minutes and keep pushing him like that. We just have to be sure we're seeing what extended minutes do to him and how he feels the next day. We don't want to stress him too much that we send him backwards."

Jefferson played 27 minutes Friday and scored 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting, adding eight rebounds in the 104-87 loss to Cleveland.

Jefferson lost 30 pounds since his season-ending knee injury last February, an exercise in diligence he wished he could have taken back Friday when he faced Cavs center Shaquille O'Neal and this time gave up probably 80 pounds or more to him. "I wish I could borrow them 30 pounds back," he said, "just for tonight."

Remembering when

Rambis was O'Neal's head coach a decade ago with the Lakers.

"It's funny, Shaq always said when he got his first ring that he'd be done and he'd retire," Rambis said. "And I kept telling him, 'You're going to keep playing until they kick you out of the league.' I just think he has so much fun playing, so much fun competing. This environment is just so compelling to so many people. It doesn't surprise me he has been in the league this long. It wouldn't surprise me if he's here for several more years."

Etc.

• The Wolves activated newcomer Nathan Jawai for the first time and made guard Jason Hart inactive. Jawai played three minutes and had four points and two rebounds.

• James' career scoring average of 29.4 points per game against the Wolves is the highest by an opponent in team history, even more than Michael Jordan's 29.2 ppg. James scored 24 of his points in the first three quarters Friday.

• Jefferson, when asked if an opponent can "get into" James' head, said: "They always tell me if a bear sleeps, keep him sleeping. You don't want to get in his head and try to talk noise to him."