Zach LaVine sat in the director's-style chair at the Minnesota State Fair last week looking more like a young veteran than a Timberwolves newcomer.
The 13th overall pick in this year's draft had been through this whole Twin Cities welcome business before. He's already practiced at the team's training facility more times than Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young. He's likely got a factoid or two to share about the quartet's new home the other three have yet to stumble across.
But LaVine is still a rookie, just like Wiggins. Unlike Wiggins, though, he's no longer the marquee first-year player in a group of relatively fresh faces.
In a few short months, LaVine has gone from the Timberwolves' top 2014 draft pick, the primary way of the future, to just another ripple in the wave of length, athleticism and aerial dexterity that Flip Saunders has built this offseason. Wiggins is now the team's top rookie, a projected superstar alongside a fellow 19-year-old whose ceiling is more in the realm of serviceable.
Less prestige, less pressure.
"Just watching everything go down, I'm more excited than ever to have everyone here," said LaVine, who was reintroduced to the Minnesota masses alongside the Kevin Love trade haul of Wiggins, Bennett and Young. "The new look of this team is going to be crazy."
Confident and spunky with a touch of channeled arrogance, the combo guard enjoys the spotlight. He reads the newspapers and blogs to see what's being said about him.
But LaVine can benefit, Saunders says, from playing alongside other elite runners and jumpers like Wiggins and Young.
"This is kind of the new age, the type of players that we have," Saunders said. "Athletic, exciting, defensive-oriented. What we're trying to do is we're trying to build not an individual, we're trying to build a team. That's the thing that we've sold to the players or anyone that we bring in here."
No arguments from LaVine, who can jump 46 inches off the ground and spent his summer making regular YouTube appearances with some remarkable dunks.
"I want to go out there and have a strong start," LaVine told fans at the fair. "I know everyone does. We're going to go out there and grind, get in the gym, just work our butt off for you guys."
With Wiggins hailed as the league's next prominent fixture, LaVine can now focus on growing his game. Although he's super athletic, his frame and skill set are relatively raw and will require honing ahead of the Wolves' Oct. 29 season opener at Memphis.
He's already immersed in that process. Following a Las Vegas Summer League showing in which he averaged 15.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists in six games, he participated in July's Seattle Pro-Am.
Whatever his planned minutes are -- he'll largely dictate them with his training camp and preseason performances -- LaVine's playing time shouldn't be affected too much by Minnesota's most recent additions. At 6-8 with a 7-foot wing span, Wiggins is more of a small forward than a shooting guard, and Young and Bennett comprise the team's main power forward rotation.
The best-case scenario for LaVine would have him coming off the bench at two-guard behind Kevin Martin, with some mop-up minutes at the point when Ricky Rubio and Mo Williams are both off the floor. (This assumes J.J. Barea, the odd man out in the franchise's latest point-guard log jam, isn't in the picture.)
There shouldn't be any Cain-esque jealousy on LaVine's part either. He and Wiggins became friends during the pre-draft process and communicated frequently throughout the summer, sometimes even sitting down for a game of NBA2K.
"He's a real cool dude," LaVine said.
And the prospect of throwing down on the NBA stage ought to satiate LaVine's appetite for primacy. His array of 360, windmill and between-limbs dunks at the Seattle Pro-Am and Panini America rookie photo shoot, among others, have led some to already crown him the league's 2015 slam dunk competition favorite.
"If I can get in the dunk contest," LaVine grinned last Tuesday at the Great Minnesota Get-Together, "I'll definitely try and win one for y'all."
Even Wiggins admits he's beneath LaVine's aeronautical impressiveness.
"I ain't doing no windmill from the free-throw line," Wiggins grinned.
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