SALT LAKE CITY – If the bushy beard, a head of luxurious hair now grown long enough to scrunch into a man bun and a full sleeve tattoo on his remarkably muscular arm don't appear suspicious enough, consider Utah's next pass-first point guard also finished a preseason game with 20 points and no assists.
All of it is alarming enough to ask: What have they done with Ricky Rubio?
Turns out, only traded him from the Timberwolves to the Jazz last summer for a future first-round pick after he finished last season playing the best basketball of his life.
Four months later, he is something of a new man, certainly in appearance and maybe even in spirit for a Jazz team now moving on, too, without star Gordon Hayward.
On Friday night, Rubio brings the Jazz to a freshly remodeled Target Center he might not quite recognize in a reunion with a Wolves team playing its home opener.
"I mean, I wanted to change a little," Rubio said. "Change the look, change a little bit of everything. Life is short, so you've got to change."
Life also is change and in the past 18 months Rubio has encountered it both personally and professionally.
His mother, Tona Vives, died in May 2016 at age 56 after a long fight with lung cancer, seven months after his coach, Flip Saunders, succumbed to cancer as well.