Five months ago Andrew Wiggins became the second Canadian-born player to be selected No. 1 overall in the NBA draft (Anthony Bennett was the first). Minutes after his selection, to nobody's surprise, the Milwaukee Bucks chose Jabari Parker out of Duke.
While Parker was widely considered to be the most NBA-ready player in the draft, the upside of Wiggins proved too tantalizing for the Cleveland Cavaliers to pass up - though not great enough, understandably, to ignore the opportunity to acquire Kevin Love later in the summer.
On Wednesday night at Target Center the top two picks, and frontrunners for Rookie of the Year honors, will get their first taste of NBA competition against each other.
The game isn't solely about Wiggins vs. Parker or who posts the better stat line in the end, it just happens to be the best reason to watch a three-win team play the upstart Bucks (8-7). Their presence makes the game interesting and exceedingly more watchable. These are two of the best 19-year-old basketball players on the face of the earth; franchise cornerstones capable of shifting their teams fortunes.
At the same time, each rookie will certainly aim to strut their stuff and validate their worth, which makes the game more exciting on the surface. Who will shine brightest?
Aside from watching two of the leagues finest rookies square off, Thad Young is expected to make his return to the starting lineup after missing five straight games due to the death of his mother. His return will push Anthony Bennett back to the bench and give the Wolves a tad more flexibility in the lineups they play.
Without Kevin Martin, who underwent surgery on his fractured right wrist Tuesday and is expected to miss six to eight weeks, the Wolves will look to Corey Brewer, Shabazz Muhammad and Chase Budinger to step up on the wing.
In case you missed it...
Flip tells the media that he thought today was Andrew Wiggins' best practice of the year. #Twolves
— Timberwolves PR (@Twolves_PR) November 25, 2014
AWESOME! Wiggins, according to his head coach and POBO, put together his best practice of the year yesterday. This comes a few days after playing his finest game yet (29 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 steals in 41 minutes in a loss to Sacramento on Saturday).
Not that this isn't positive news, but seriously we're talking about practice? Not a game, but practice? What are we talking about... practice? We're talking about practice, man! Which makes me think...
(Note: I'm happy Wiggins had a great practice, though I don't think we should throw a party or anything)
In other news... Corey Brewer SMILES A LOT and might be the happiest guy to walk the planet. He also prefers beer over wine, which I learned here:
It's #MeetCoreyMonday! #twolves @MNTimberwolves http://t.co/lT03dRlxCV
— Corey Brewer (@CoreyBrewer13) November 24, 2014
Glenn Robinson III did his first Reddit AMA yesterday. This was one of the better questions/answers:
Q: Who wins in a fight: 100 duck-sized Nikola Pekovic's or 1 Nikola Pekovic sized duck?
A: The one Pek sized duck. You can't go wrong with that. But I could take both...
You can check out the full AMA here:
Huge thanks to @GRIII for taking our questions on /r/NBA! http://t.co/ke8oiTSt3v @MNTimberwolves @Twolves_PR @CAA_Basketball
— /r/NBA (@NBA_Reddit) November 25, 2014
Music: Jenny Lewis - Silver Lining (live at Coachella)
hooray hooray I'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now im gold
hooray hooray I'm your silver lining
hooray hooray but now im gold
The other night I was listening to Pandora and this song by Jenny Lewis started playing. It made me think of Andrew Wiggins. This season has been tough as hell already; only 12 games through and it seems like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. That is, everything but Wiggins. He's the silver lining. And eventually he may become gold.
Enjoy your day.