For a point guard in basketball, the foremost responsibility on court is traditionally in playmaking and facilitating. Talented and multifaceted scorers are the shades of paint at the position’s artistic disposal.
These days Ricky Rubio, the Spanish point guard well-known for his passing creativity and ambition, suddenly has one of the richest palettes in the NBA on hand. And he can't wait to start experimenting with it.
Rubio is in Dubai this week, along with former pro Peja Stojakovic, teaching kids his craft at the BasicBall Academy at Dubai Sports World. It’s a moment of relative downtime and relaxation ahead of training camp in September and the early October beginning of pre-season.
Then he has serious work to get down to with the Timberwolves.
PHOTO GALLERY: NBA's Ricky Rubio and Peja Stojakovic conduct clinics at Dubai Sports World
It’s an exciting time in Minnesota, with the arrival of the top 2015 draft pick, Karl-Anthony Towns, and the continued development of Andrew Wiggins. Complementing young talents like Zach LaVine, Gorgui Dieng, Anthony Bennett and Shabazz Muhammad give the team the sort of potential it hasn’t had in years. And it will be Rubio’s job, as the on-floor visionary, to put it all together in some meaningful way.
“I’m so excited for this upcoming season,” the 24-year-old fifth pick of the 2009 draft said on Tuesday at Dubai Sports World. “We have a lot of talent, we have a lot of future, but we have to start showing it now.”
The 2015/16 season won’t necessarily be pivotal for the Timberwolves – Towns is only 19, Wiggins 20, LaVine 20 – but it can be the start of something big for a club that hasn’t been to the play-offs in over a decade. And Rubio, naturally, would like to see the growth sooner than later.
“It’s early to talk about how the season’s gonna go,” he said, “but I like to dream big, like to set high expectations. And I think it’s time we make the play-offs.”
His job now might be one of the most envious in all of basketball. Wiggins, the top overall pick last season, is as explosive a talent as any to come around in the last few years. A leaper, an audacious attacker and a wing who just scratched the surface of his talent last season winning the rookie of the year award while scoring 17.1 points per game. Towns is a fleet-footed 6ft 11in game-changer, sure around the basket in a traditional big-man’s role with the additional skill to play the game from the outside in, shooting and driving with the strength of his 250-pound frame with the touch and speed of someone five inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter.
“I met him during the summer, I was in Minnesota and I saw him working out. He has a lot of talent, not just as a big guy,” Rubio said of Towns. “He can shoot the ball very well, I think we can play the pick-and-pop very well. Nowadays in the NBA that’s one of the keys to being a good team.”
He called Wiggins a “special player” as well.
“He especially is an awesome person, a special player, he has a lot of talent and can score in a lot of ways so it’s great for me to play with them.”
Rubio has always prided himself on his passing and his vision – “those are my strengths” he said – and after an injury-hit 2014/15, he said he’s healthy and “can start feeling like a player again” with a Timberwolves team that has coalesced around him into maybe the most tantalisingly projectable in the league.
“We just have to build our chemistry and rapport in training camp,” he said. “The team is built around a lot of talent, but with a point guard who can pass the ball and set up my teammates. I feel pretty well in that scenario.
“No doubt they have a lot of talent, but now they have to show it. So it’s something I’m there to help them with. I have my experience, I’ve been in the league for four years, this is my fifth, and I can share with them and try to get them better.”
Getting Minnesota not just better, but into real contention, will be an uphill climb at best in the stacked Western Conference, with realistically probably only one play-off spot up for grabs. They finished 16-66, the worst record in the league. They were nearly 30 wins away from eighth-seeded New Orleans.
The post-season within that context is still, most likely, a fair reach. But with Towns and Wiggins – and a healthy Rubio – it’s also not blatantly impossible anymore.
Every summer, on every team, just about every player will talk about play-offs. For the first time in his career though, Ricky Rubio can speak about high expectations and dreaming big with realistic tailwinds inflecting genuine self-assuredness in his talk of play-offs.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
When Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi
Known as The Lady of Arabic Song, Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi on November 28, 1971, as part of celebrations for the fifth anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as Ruler of Abu Dhabi. A concert hall was constructed for the event on land that is now Al Nahyan Stadium, behind Al Wahda Mall. The audience were treated to many of Kulthum's most well-known songs as part of the sold-out show, including Aghadan Alqak and Enta Omri.
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The five pillars of Islam
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FIGHT CARD
Featherweight 4 rounds:
Yousuf Ali (2-0-0) (win-loss-draw) v Alex Semugenyi (0-1-0)
Welterweight 6 rounds:
Benyamin Moradzadeh (0-0-0) v Rohit Chaudhary (4-0-2)
Heavyweight 4 rounds:
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Lightweight 10 rounds:
Bader Samreen (8-0-0) v Jose Paez Gonzales (16-2-2-)
