Will Ricky Rubio's Head Start Cost Him Down the Road?

Ricky Rubio is certainly wise beyond his years.

He cracked Spain's professional league at age 14. He debuted in Euroleague play three days after his 16th birthday.

Even a teenage LeBron needed to borrow against future earning to land his first Hummer.

At the same age, Rubio was making good to the tune of €80,000 per season.

While American prep stars were making college visits, Rubio was squaring off against Kobe and the "Redeem Team" in Olympic play.

But should the 18-year-old phenom's NBA suitors be concerned about his mileage?

The side story to Rubio's career arc, precocious to an unprecedented degree, is that he has logged an equally unprecedented load of games and minutes at a tender young age.

In four seasons with Spanish professional club DKV Joventut, Rubio has 136 games and nearly 2,700 minutes of playing time under his belt.

Thirty-four games per year doesn't sound so different from a high school/AAU schedule, but those totals are skewed by a wrist injury that forced Rubio to miss significant time this season. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons, Rubio totaled 49 and 50 club games, respectively.

That doesn't include his stints with Spain's Under-16, Under-18, and senior national teams in international play, all of which have included runs to the championship rounds. In short, Rubio has been playing year-round basketball for the past three seasons.

Most of those games weren't "look what I can do" showcases against his peers, or even college-level competition—they were mano e mano affairs with fully grown pros, guaranteed to leave a few souvenir bruises.

If prep-to-pro stars start to decline as early as their pro basketball odometers climb (ESPN's Bill Simmons is big on this theory), where does that leave Rubio, who has already been put through the paces harder than most college players?

Indeed, Rubio will enter the league with perhaps more wear-and-tear on his body than any 18-year-old who has come before him.

This shouldn't necessarily discourage teams from investing in him. Questions about his longevity are still a decade or more away from rearing up in earnest, and his head start on professional experience should make the transition into The Association a little bit easier.

But Rubio's development will be a fascinating case study in just how many high-level basketball games a body can handle.

By the time Rubio grows into his body, he'll be a four-year veteran with nearly 500 pro games behind him between the U.S. and Europe. He'll enter his prime having played 800 games already, and pass the 1,000-games mark around age 29.

That doesn't include playoff appearances (and it's remarkably difficult for an NBA club to miss the postseason for a decade straight) or international activities.

By age 30, he'll have played more regular season pro games between Europe and the U.S. than either Steve Nash (35) or Jason Kidd (36) currently have on their odometers.

If Rubio plays as long as either of those old-timers, he's a virtual lock to pass John Stockton for the most games ever played by a point guard (1,504).

Of course, that's getting more than a little ahead of ourselves. Whichever team drafts Rubio likely will be happy if he doesn't hit the wall by 31 or 32, when his knees have been through more reps up and down the court than most players ever see.

The franchise that tabs Rubio tonight—Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Minnesota, or some as-yet-unknown draft day mover—will look to the young passer to lead a fresh start.

They'd better hope he doesn't come with an early expiration date.