MINNEAPOLIS — News reports on both sides of the Atlantic on Monday night said Ricky Rubio will stay in Spain and play for a Barcelona team until at least 2011.
But as this mysterious serial now stretches into its third full month, a question still remains:

Is this really, truly it?
Timberwolves basketball boss David Kahn — in Spain since late last week working to obtain Rubio’s release from his DKV Joventut team — remained mum on the subject Monday night.
That’s when ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports and Spanish media outlets, quoting unnamed sources, said Rubio’s team turned down the Wolves’ offer to buy out the 18-year-old point guard’s contract and agreed to transfer Rubio to Regal Barcelona for $5.3 million cash of what was originally an $8.1 million release clause.
The deal with Barcelona reportedly includes its own buyout that would allow Rubio to come to the NBA, and the Wolves, two years from now.
Kahn predicted the summer would be turbulent and he promised to remain patient after he selected Rubio fifth overall in the June 25 draft. That day, Rubio and his camp immediately appeared less than thrilled to have been selected by a Timberwolves franchise that plays in a small, cold market and hasn’t made the playoffs since it reached the 2004 Western Conference finals.
Rubio entered the draft this year because, he said, he wanted to play in the NBA immediately.
His representatives pushed for him to become one of the draft’s top three picks or land in a market such as New York City because the extra millions of dollars earned from either the league’s tiered rookie wage scale or a media market like Manhattan would counter his expensive buyout.
Kahn said if any team in the NBA could afford to wait for Rubio for one year, or even two, it was his team.
He went to Spain not once, not twice, but three times this summer hoping to bring back another point guard to join rookie Jonny Flynn with a creative, if limited, offer, believed to include money Rubio would earn from endorsements, his NBA contract and the possibility the Wolves could play exhibition games against Joventut in Spain.
If his efforts indeed have failed and Rubio ends up in Barcelona for the next two years, will Kahn wait him out, as he said he and the Wolves can afford to do?
The Wolves own Rubio’s rights as long as he plays professionally elsewhere. He’d have to sit out an entire season before he could go back into the NBA draft.
Or is this latest news simply another chapter in a game of negotiating chicken involving Kahn and the Wolves, Rubio and agent Dan Fegan, DKV Joventut and Regal Barcelona?
An NBA source said Monday the New York Knicks have renewed efforts to acquire Rubio. Their most attractive asset is restricted free agent David Lee, whom they could deal in a sign-and-trade arrangement. But the Knicks lack a selection of future first-round picks. Utah owns the Knicks’ unprotected first-round pick next summer.
Lee also is a power forward, and the Wolves already are built around power forwards Al Jefferson and Kevin Love. But Lee also conceivably is the kind of talent Kahn could trade for other assets.
If true, that brings this saga back to where it started on draft night, when the Knicks offered promising young forward Wilson Chandler to swap their eighth overall pick for the Wolves’ fifth pick and the chance to take Rubio.