Minnesota Timberwolves: Ranking the 5 best Wolves duos for NBA Jam
By Phil Ford
Minnesota Timberwolves: Ranking the 5 best Wolves for NBA Jam
2. Ricky Rubio and Zach LaVine
Another more recent pair of teammates, Ricky Rubio and Zach LaVine were partners in Minnesota for three seasons from 2014 to 2017.
This may be a bit of a shocker, as neither player was a star while in Minnesota, but Rubio and LaVine would pair perfectly together.
Rubio averaged 8.9 assists while they were teammates, while LaVine was on the receiving end, averaging 13.7 points in their three years as teammates.
The fruits of their time together were nothing short of spectacular. A beautiful marriage of passing brilliance and acrobatics at the rim.
Rubio is arguably the perfect point guard for an NBA Jam duo: he is a great passer and can play some defense. Watching him throw alley-oop after alley-oop would be mesmerizing.
LaVine is the real star here though. He is in the conversation as one of the greatest dunkers of all-time. He won back-to-back dunk contests, which were arguably two of the best performances in dunk contest history. He is the NBA Jam prototype: a huge vertical, creativity, and the ability to dunk on anyone.
If Towns and Wiggins were the perfect pair of ultra athleticism, then Rubio and LaVine are the perfect complements to each other. Like Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, or Scott Skiles and Shaq, Rubio and LaVine pair the perfect passing point guard with an absolute dunk god, which is half the fun of NBA Jam.
An added wrinkle that puts this tandem firmly in the number two position is the fact that they even have a mascot in the form of a young fan’s hamster. That’s a huge advantage over other NBA Jam pairs that is hard to overcome.
It’s unfortunate for Wolves fans that LaVine and Rubio left via trades and couldn’t give them a few more years of perfect alley-oops. The Rubio and LaVine combo is the one that got away for Wolves fans.