{"id":742609,"date":"2026-05-24T08:33:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/742609\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T08:33:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:33:23","slug":"jeff-teague-puts-timberwolves-and-ricky-rubio-on-blast-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/742609\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Teague Puts Timberwolves and Ricky Rubio on Blast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> season is over, and it ended earlier than it had in either of the two playoffs prior, in round two \u2014 a 4-2 series loss<\/a> at the hands of Wemby<\/a> and the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As good as the past few Wolves teams have been, they weren\u2019t able to bring Minnesota to the precipice of its first major sports title since 1991. In fact, Anthony Edwards<\/a> and the boys weren\u2019t even able to bring the Wolves to the precipice of greatness, falling twice in the West Finals, before taking a step back this postseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Still, if you are a suffering MN Timberwolves fan trying to find peace of mind, you don\u2019t have to look back very far to find times that were so, so, so, so much worse than what we are dealing with right now.<\/p>\n

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Just ask former NBA point guard Jeff Teague<\/a>, who played for the Wolves for parts of three seasons. The 2009 first round draft pick was acquired in free agency in late June, 2017<\/a> \u2014 the same day a Tom Thibodeau<\/a> traded Ricky Rubio<\/a> to Utah for a 2018 first round draft pick (top 14 protected).<\/p>\n

Jeff Teague reveals true feelings on Ricky Rubio while telling crazy Glen Taylor story\"NBA:<\/p>\n

Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

Teague told the story on a recent episode of his podcast, \u201cThe Old Man and the Three\u201d<\/a>, of his first meeting with former Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor<\/a>, who essentially saw the Rubio + Teague transactions that summer as a trade.<\/p>\n

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And when Jeff Teague first arrived in town, Taylor let him know that he was replacing Glen\u2019s favorite Wolves player of all time. Of course, being that Teague wasn\u2019t traded to Minnesota, he was surprised when Taylor clarified that it was Ricky Rubio.<\/p>\n

Glen wasn\u2019t happy at his new point guard\u2019s reaction during their first interaction, either, even though Thibs told him, \u201cdon\u2019t worry about that shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to Minnesota \u2014 shout out to Ricky Rubio \u2014 and the owner at the time came up to me. It\u2019s the first day. I\u2019m about to sign. He said, \u201cMan, you better get us to the playoffs because I traded my favorite player for you and I don\u2019t know you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u2018damn.\u2019 So I\u2019m trying to think of who\u2019s on the team. They haven\u2019t been to the playoffs in like 14 years, so they ass. I used to party before I played them\u2026 So, I was like, \u201cZach [LaVine]?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cNo, Ricky.\u201d I was like, \u201cRubio?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was like \u201cWhat the f***?!\u201d No disrespect to Ricky but he \u2014 he\u2019s a \u2014 okay, whatever. And I\u2019m like, \u201cAre you serious?!\u201d And [Taylor] was like mad. And Thibs [told me], \u201cDon\u2019t worry about that shit.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Teague \u2013 The Old Man and the Three Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

More MN Timberwolves News: Julius Randle No-Shows Final Press Conference<\/a><\/p>\n

Some light research reveals that Jeff Teague was drafted No. 19 overall in 2009<\/a> \u2014 the same year Minnesota picked Rubio (No. 5) and Johnny Flynn (No. 6) in the first round, over Teague, Steph Curry<\/a> and a bevy of other point guards who went on to have successful careers in the NBA.<\/p>\n

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Teague probably never liked Ricky Rubio<\/p>\n

In other words, his opinions on the Spaniard probably date all the way back to when they both came into the league together \u2014 one with all sorts of international hype as already one of the greatest passers in basketball history \u2014 the other as just another score-first point guard from Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Thus, the first time Minnesota played the Utah Jazz<\/a>, after they swapped out point guards, Teague revealed during his show that he was out to send a message to both Taylor and Rubio with his \u201chard steal\u201d attempt, which sent Rubio flying into the first row of seats. The refs weren\u2019t fooled though, since the flagrant got him ejected.<\/p>\n

Teague was Thibs\u2019 final major move. to reshape the Minnesota Timberwolves roster, at the time. If you\u2019ll remember, though, that roster construction project eventually killed the Thibs era.<\/p>\n

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One year later, Butler blew up a divided locker room<\/a> and was shipped out. Thibodeau was then fired 40 games into the 2018-19 season, and replaced by Ryan Saunders. About a year later, before the 2019-20 trade deadline, Teague was traded back to Atlanta<\/a>, who originally drafted him in 2009., .<\/p>\n

Jeff Teague never wanted to play for MN Timberwolves either<\/p>\n

However, Jeff never wanted to play for Minnesota in the first place, which he also revealed in the clip above. He wanted to stay in Indiana<\/a>, where he had spent the one season prior. They didn\u2019t want him, though. So, he signed with the Timberwolves because he liked Jimmy and Thibs, and was running out of options in free agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t even [Rubio\u2019s] fault. It was the owner\u2019s fault. So I was like, you like this guy, I\u2019m gonna show him something. I didn\u2019t want to go to Minnesota anyways. I liked Thibs, I liked Jimmy, but I wanted to stay with the Pacers.<\/p>\n

Jeff Teague \u2013 The Old Man and the Three Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: Anthony Edwards Wants Kyrie Irving in Minnesota<\/a><\/p>\n

I want to be offended over how much shade Jeff Teague throws at Minnesota during this week\u2019s podcast. Unfortunately, a lot of it is just factual (like the Wolves being ass for so long). And the rest\u2026 well, I\u2019m too busy wrapping my brain around his lack of respect for Ricky Rubio as a basketball player.<\/p>\n

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In case Jeff isn\u2019t aware, the numbers say that Ricky (698 GP<\/a>: 10.8 PPG, 7.4 APG, 4.1 RPG) had an overall better NBA career than he did (826 GP<\/a>: 12.2 PPG, 5.6 APG, 2.4 RPG).<\/p>\n

However, Teague did make the playoffs ten times, to Ricky\u2019s three\u2026 and seven times before he got to Minnesota. So maybe that\u2019s where the disbelief came from during their interaction.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there\u2019s clearly some underlying resentment that needs to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Timberwolves season is over, and it ended earlier than it had in either of the two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3782],"tags":[375,676,7,16432,113,3403,376,307,152,3954,6,17678,474,932,308,427,2474,827],"class_list":["post-742609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-atlanta","tag-basketball","tag-glen-taylor","tag-indiana","tag-jeff-teague","tag-julius-randle","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-nba","tag-ricky-rubio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-steph-curry","tag-timberwolves","tag-utah-jazz","tag-wemby","tag-wolves"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116628632603345639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}