MINNEAPOLIS -- Hunched over in front of his Target Center locker following the Timberwolves' April 15 finale, Andrew Wiggins spoke beyond his 20 years, pointing out each aching extremity after a season he played, lived and breathed to the fullest.
"I'm tired, man," the Toronto kid they call "Maple Jordan" back home said, half-smiling, half-grimacing. "My legs are tired. My back's a little sore. Arms are sore. Some sleep will handle it all, though."
By the end of his first campaign, Wiggins didn't exactly sound like a rookie. He certainly didn't play like one. But the best first-year player in franchise history cemented his status as the NBA's top 2014-15 rookie Thursday, an accomplishment not even former stars Kevin Garnett or Kevin Love seized.
A panel of sportswriters and broadcasters handed Wiggins 110 of 130 first-place votes, allowing him to beat out the Chicago Bulls’ Nikola Mirotic, who finished second with 335 points (14 first-place votes). Philadelphia 76ers center Nerlens Noel was third with 141 points (three first-place votes).
Throughout the year, Wiggins called this "the ultimate goal."
"Hopefully it comes true," the first-ever Canadian Rookie of the Year and second foreign player to win the award said. "I think it'd be great for me, the Timberwolves and Canada."
That was during the season's final weeks. By then, Thursday's announcement was a already a forthcoming formality.
Wiggins led all rookies in scoring (16.9 points per game) and minutes (36.2 per game) and ranked fifth among in first-year players in rebounding (4.6), seventh in assists (2.1) and fourth in steals (1.0) while frequently guarding the opposition's top scorer. Starting Dec. 1, he led the entire league in minutes.
But the number in which Wiggins takes most pride is 82 -- the number of games he played, and started, setting him high atop the rookie class and even ahead of the rest of his teammates. No other Wolves player appeared in every single contest during an injury-rocked, 16-win season that has them seeded first in next month's draft lottery.
"That's crazy, because he's been playing the minutes since Day 1," fellow 20-year-old rookie Zach LaVine said. "It shows you what type of athlete he is."
That athlete, according to coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, is reason enough to believe this organization is moving on a positive path despite missing the playoffs for an 11th straight year and accumulating the second-worst record in its 26-year history.
"If you look at the teams that are successful right now, whether it's a Houston or Golden State or you look at Chicago yesterday with (Derrick Rose), you look at all these different teams, they all have a player who can create, who can create plays out of nothing," Saunders said. "They get to the free-throw line. For the first time, pretty much, in this organization, we have a player who can do that in Wiggins."
Wiggins' upside -- ballyhooed since before he was in high school -- was enough for Saunders to covet the Kansas one-and-done in the Kevin Love trade last summer. As the season unfolded and the injuries to starters and key reserves piled up, Wiggins became more of the focal point he said he wanted to be shortly after the Cavaliers, who drafted him first overall, dealt him.
By the end, he was dunking over the likes of Rudy Gobert and Omer Asik, or reaching the foul stripe trying. He finished sixth in the league in free throws attempted, and knocked them down at a 76-percent clip -- fourth among rookies.
"The last month, he's probably had more highlight dunks here than we've had in the last five years combined," Saunders said of Wiggins, a four-time Western Conference rookie of the month and 2015 Rising Stars Challenge MVP. "It's like the game slows down, he sees an opening, and boom, he just goes."
Said Wiggins, who shot 43.7 percent from the floor and 31 percent from 3-point range: "My first instinct is to get to the basket, get to the rim. If you back off, I'll shoot it, but if I see a lane, I'm going for it, no matter whoever I see there. It doesn't matter."
Displaying that mentality in a Minnesota season with few other highlights -- save for Garnett's brief return and some high-scoring nights and a Slam Dunk Contest win by LaVine -- Wiggins scored 20 or more points 27 times (17 more than the next rookie on the board) and had four 30-plus-point games.
No other NBA newbie had more than one.
And somehow, through it all, Wiggins came in only brief contact with the oft-discussed "rookie wall." There were times when he looked fatigued, particularly after the All-Star break, but he rarely followed up an off night with another one.
"I think where we were at because of the amount of players that we had, he didn't have a chance to just hit it and stick," Saunders said. "We force-fed him so much by giving him the ball, because he had to play. (There were times) of frustration because he maybe couldn't get to a loose ball that you want him to. But you have to understand the situation.
"I didn't envision him playing the amount of minutes he's played this year."
After some much-needed time off, the son of former NBAer Mitchell Wiggins and Olympic sprinter Marita Payne plans to join Team Canada for the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament Aug. 25-Sept. 6 in Monterrey, Mexico. Assistant Ryan Saunders and a team trainer will be alongside him to make sure he's taking care of his body, Flip Saunders said.
In the meantime, he'll spend at least part of the offseason working out at the Wolves' new Mayo Clinic Square practice facility.
"He'll just have to be in a situation where he makes sure he gets his rest, which he does," Saunders said. "I mean, his nickname, the guys call him 'Sleepy,' so he's going to get his rest one way or the other."
And after becoming Minnesota's inaugural Rookie of the Year, it'll be well-deserved.
"It's quite an accomplishment that he's had this year," forward Chase Budinger said. "He's improved so much from the beginning of the year to now. His confidence is way up. He's been learning a lot, and the minutes that he's been playing, he's been battling it out."
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