Wolves Stuff: Wiggins Says Yes To Team Canada, The Return of Bryan Gates, KAT Stays Plotting

NORTHEAST, MINNEAPOLIS — Drinking another unexceptional IPA in a saturated market of breweries, trying to see if my taste buds would finally come around to the strong and bitter hoppy beer style that people seem to love, Andrew Wiggins was the topic of discussion.

“Hey, did you see Wiggins is playing with Team Canada this year?” I said to my friend, who is terrible at listening to other humans.

“How much should I venmo you for these beers?” he responded, clearly distracted by Reddit comments about how incredible the Twins are at hitting dingers this season.

“We’ll figure it out later,” I tell him. “But yeah, Wiggs kind of seems a bit more invested these days which is something I gue—”

“Did you see the tweet about him playing for Team Canada?” he responds, lagging behind.

(Thinking about not being too passive-aggressive.)

“Yeah, I saw that. It’s cool.”

Then we talked about how Andrew never dunks over Rudy Gobert anymore.

In a perfect world, Wiggins would show up to the World Cup in China seeking to destroy the tournament and effectively launch his own NBA Revival Tour after a tremendous fifth-year flop in Minnesota. In the real world, it would be nice to see a shift in shot selection, among various other changes.

Canadian basketball fans are probably pleased with this news as they’ve gotten on Wiggins in previous years for not playing on the national team. They have to be on a serious high right now after the Raptors first title.

In other news, the Wolves are close to adding another assistant coach to Ryan Saunders’ staff. You might recall the name Bryan Gates, who coached under Dave Joerger in Sacramento last season. He worked on Flip Saunders’ staff in 2015.

If playing an up-tempo style and pushing the pace in transition way more next season is truly what they want to do, Gates’ experience with the Kings last season could help the cause. Sacramento finished 5th in pace at 103.1 possessions per 48 minutes (5th of 30). Wolves were at 100.2 (14th of 30). Getting Wiggins out in transition before he’s asked to attack in halfcourt sets (not wise) was a point of emphasis once Saunders took over for Thibodeau and will continue to be. In theory, Gates may be able to help them push the pace.

Fun fact: Gates has triplets. Happy Belated Father’s Day to him and all the other dads out there! (I can’t even deal with my dog sometimes let alone three kids who are the same age.)

Our friend Shahbaz is a talented tweeter and we can see here that KAT is plotting his inevitable takeover after landing at MSP airport at 4 am this morning after a brief trip to China.

“Minny deserves better. I plan to give it to them.”

Hi, KAT. Thanks for stopping by to read Canis Hoopus! I see you’re on a mission to shift the culture. That’s really sweet. The Twins are a perfect local example of how critical chemistry is. You can’t fake it. Your friend D’Lo was part of a team that seemed extremely tight with each other last season. Perhaps you guys can meet up for dinner in Minneapolis soon to discuss things of that nature.