Wiggins' path to top rookie paved after tongue-lashing from Saunders
MINNEAPOLIS -- The commonly accepted inflection point in Andrew Wiggins' Rookie of the Year campaign came Dec. 23 at Cleveland. That night, the Vaughan, Ontario, kid they call "Maple Jordan" back home went toe-to-toe with LeBron James, scoring 27 points against the team that traded him to the Timberwolves in the Kevin Love deal last summer.
But the one night that altered the trajectory of Wiggins' inaugural NBA season, in fact, came eight games earlier in the visiting locker room at San Antonio's AT&T Center.
Wiggins, a 19-year-old playing in his 19th NBA game, had a putrid evening in that Dec. 6 loss to the Spurs. He made 3 of 13 field-goal attempts, didn't take a 3-pointer and never reached the free-throw line. He pulled down just one rebound in 33 minutes, 47 seconds of court time. Worse, though, head coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders saw him loafing, vindicating the critics who claimed Wiggins' passivity could be his Achilles' heel.
So Saunders let him know about afterward. Loudly. In front of the entire team.
"He killed me," Wiggins said.
Saunders, who had traded a disgruntled Love in a three-way deal that landed him the eventual 2014-15 NBA Rookie of the Year, said: "He didn't have a great game. And I challenged him after the game that we needed more from him. He was our leader, the face of the franchise. We needed more from him. His teammates needed more.
"From that time on, we never had to worry about him as far as moving forward."
Rather than run from the provocation, Wiggins embraced it. Need a mental image? Think him skying to dunk over Rudy Gobert and Omer Asik late in the season. What happened the rest of the way resulted in landslide balloting from NBA media -- 110 out of 130 first-place votes in an award that was officially announced Thursday.
But for weeks -- flashes in the pan from second-place Nikola Mirotic and third-place Nerlens Noel notwithstanding -- this was a foregone conclusion.
"When we made the trade last summer, we talked about him being the cornerstone of the organization," general manager Milt Newton said at a news conference on the Target Center's main floor. "I think, based on his play this year and the reception of this award, it gives us a foretaste of that's something that will come to fruition."
Dressed in a midnight-blue tuxedo that he could've used for prom two years ago -- less flamboyant than the black-and-white, flower-patterned garb he donned for the 2014 NBA Draft -- Wiggins accepted his Eddie Gottlieb trophy and had a 2016 Kia Sorento donated to Rock of Faith Worship Centre in North York, Ontario, in his name. He thanked his family, which includes a father, Mitchell Wiggins, who played in the NBA, and a mother, Marita Payne-Wiggins, with two Olympic silver medals as a sprinter. During the pomp-and-circumstance, he sat hunched over, bearded chin jutting over his bowtie.
But when he heard the words "franchise cornerstone," his 20-year-old face perked up.
"That's motivation to my ears," he said.
After that night in San Antonio, the Wolves and Canada's inaugural Rookie of the Year sure played like one.
Wiggins led all rookies in scoring with 16.9 points per game and ranked fourth among them in steals (1.0 per game) and fifth in rebounding (4.6 per game). He was the only rookie and one of just 11 NBA players to play in all 82 games.
From Dec. 1, Wiggins -- playing for an injury-riddled squad that won 16 games, the league's worst record -- led the NBA in minutes.
He looked good in two meetings against James. Shut down James Harden. Limited Russell Westbrook. And that was just on defense.
"(The award) means a lot to me," said Wiggins, the unquestioned star of a young core that stands to get better when Minnesota drafts in the top four in June. "I know it means a lot to the organization and there's a whole lot of history. It should bring a lot of hope for the future of the Minnesota Timberwolves. It should give people a different look at things.
"This is the uprising."
Earlier in the season, Wiggins called winning Rookie of the Year "the ultimate goal."
What's next? Wiggins said No. 1 is making the playoffs. The NBA All-Star Game is in Toronto next year, so that's on his to-do list as well.
Wiggins, whose family moved to the Twin Cities to be with him this season, said he'll bounce around among Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Canada this summer. He plans to join his countrymen for both the Pan American Games July 10-26 in Toronto and the Olympic-qualifying FIBA Championship Aug. 25-Sept. 6 in Monterrey, Mexico.
Then he'll come back -- hopefully with some more muscle on that springy, sinewy, 6-foot-8, 199-pound frame of his, he said -- and rejoin a team he said afforded him every opportunity for early superstardom.
That's something he never would've had playing behind James in Cleveland, the No. 1 overall pick said.
"I know that I have a long way to go," Wiggins said. "I'm only 20 years old. . . . I just have to get better and become a better leader on the court, off the court. And try to hope for better things."
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