Rubio: Trade deadline is fun, 'unless it's you'

Ricky Rubio admits it's fun watching all that happens and that doesn't in the days and hours leading to the NBA's trading deadline each year.

This time, though, he adds his own asterisk.

"It's fun to see all the trades," he said. "Unless it's you."

This year, his name was often rumored and after Thursday's 2 p.m. deadline Wolves GM Milt Newton said he fielded calls from teams -- believed to be Milwaukee and New York, among them -- interested in Rubio, as his job requires him to do, but said he never sent a call out shopping Rubio around.

"I mean, it's all rumors and if it happens, it happens," Rubio said. "When your name is out there, it's not fun. But it's part of the business."

On Thursday before the team left for Friday's game at Memphis, Newton said, "If something makes our team better, it's something we'd consider and they know that. But the fact is you see a lot of rumors out there with teams that are not necessarily true. It's funny because you know it's not true, but I can't go to a player every single day and say look, `It's not true, it's not true.' But they understand this is a business. We'll have some conversations when they get back."

Asked at Friday's morning shootaround if Newton had addressed the trade rumors and trade discussions with him, Rubio succinctly said, "Nope."

When told Newton said he intended to talk with players about such things, Rubio said, "I hope."

The Wolves didn't make a move by Thursday afternoon, but their needs going forward to this summer's draft and free-agency period: A veteran athletic wing who can defend and shoot, basically a young Tayshaun Prince (think Milwaukee's Khris Middleton or free agents Nic Batum or Harrison Barnes), another athletic big man they can put beside Karl-Anthony Towns (think Milwaukee's Miles Plumlee or similar) and if they had their druthers, probably a scoring point guard as well.

The Wolves embark on the final 28 games of their season tonight against a Grizzlies team where you might need a scorecard to know all the players after Memphis made two trade-deadline deals that sent away Courtney Lee and Jeff Green.

The Grizzlies also will play without injured star Marc Gasol against a Wolves team missing Kevin Garnett (sore knee), Nemanja Bjelica (sore foot) and Nikola Pekovic (sore foot).

The Wolves entered All-Star break by winning three of four games. Now after a nine-day break, they're trying to pick up where they left off.

"We had a good momentum, we beat really good teams like Clippers or Toronto at home," Rubio said."We have to take these last 30 games like it's something we want to build on and keep the momentum we had. It's hard with that break, but we were playing better and we want to keep improving."