Wiggins, Wolves youngsters largely steal show in Rising Stars game
Andrew Wiggins made a slam dunk contest appearance, after all. Fellow 19-year-old Timberwolves rookie Zach LaVine did his best to keep pace. Gorgui Dieng went coast-to-coast in a sequence that would've had Flip Saunders flipping his lid. Shabazz Muhammad had his moments, too.
Take a schoolyard pickup game -- with NBA assistant coaches choosing the sides -- and infuse it with a Wolves intrasquad scrimmage, and the 2015 NBA Rising Stars Challenge comes out.
The World team beat the United States at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, but the real story for Minnesota occurred the past two summers when Saunders assembled the young core on display Friday night, building hope for the future that centers around Wiggins and soars higher every time LaVine flies in for a dunk. The Wolves' four players on hand were the most in the All-Star weekend event's history.
And all four put on some kind of show.
"I loved being out there," Wiggins said. "I did enjoy it. It was all fun. It was competitive, but it was fun, too. I think the fans and all the people watching had something to watch, some entertainment."
Wiggins' 22 points, six rebounds, four assists, steal and blocked shot earned him game MVP honors (tabulated via social media fan vote). Much like he did this season, the NBA rookie of the year candidate started slowly but gained steam as the game wore on.
He entered the All-Star break leading all rookies in scoring and playing the most minutes of any NBA player since Jan. 1.
"This trophy is for the world, and most importantly for Canada," the Vaughan, Ontario native told TNT at the broadcast's conclusion.
Wiggins wowed a crowd of 15,451 with six dunks. Fans clamored for the athletic Kansas product to take part in this year's Slam Dunk Contest, but he declined, instead saving all his hops for Friday -- including a 360-degree jam.
LaVine, however, will cap All-Star Saturday Night with his own set of creative slams. Coming off the bench Friday, he tied Victor Oladipo for a USA-best 22 points -- matching Wiggins -- and dished out four assists.
"It's been a lot of fun, like I thought it would be," LaVine said. "In practice, we go at each other just the same as we did out there. When we scrimmage in practice, (Wiggins) might have 20 one day, I might have 20. As long as we're on same team, we're both doing alright."
Dieng, the first Senegal native to play in this game since its 1994 inception, finished with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and four boards off the bench. His most memorable moment came in the second half when he took a steal from the World free-throw line, dribbled past a couple of disinterested defenders and swooped in for a wire-to-wire layup.
Muhammad played 18 minutes, 26 seconds and had 10 points and five rebounds.
The NBA's assistant coaches voted players into the annual rookie-sophomore affair. It featured two 20-minute halves, like a college game, and very little defense, like its older, glitzier brother -- the NBA All-Star Game itself, which takes place Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
But sometimes, just being there is enough.
"Now is a really big stepping stone for us," Muhammad said.
A Wolves team that hasn't been to the playoffs in 11 years has six first-round picks from the past two drafts hoping to someday annihilate that dubious streak. Four of them wore New York nightscape-patterned jerseys and shorts and tricked-out shoes Friday night.
"It does say something," said Saunders, who traded for Muhammad and Dieng in the 2013 draft, picked LaVine 13th overall this past summer and got Wiggins in the Kevin Love trade. "We're a team that hasn't won games, and fans are out there and they're saying, 'what is this team?' But when you have, supposedly, the top 20 young players in the world, and you've got 20 percent of those guys playing . . . it says something we're going to be like in a couple years."
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