Among the many attractions at the Minnesota State Fair are two rides: the Crazy Dance (“Everything twists and turns, all at once,” the brochure promises) and The Hurricane (“Take a seat on this natural disaster, but remember that the real fun begins as the ride speeds up, spinning in circles.”)
There could be no more perfect place, then, for Andrew Wiggins to perform his first major function as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
After hearing all season at Kansas that teams were tanking in order to get a shot at him — and not just “teams,” but storied franchises — Wiggins had days to enjoy his status as the first-overall pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers before speculation circulated that he was on the move to bring in a more established piece for a franchise that had seen its landscape altered with the return of LeBron James.
He sat around and waited for his rookie contract to be signed, knowing it was little more than the NBA’s version of “transit papers.” Eventually, he and fellow Canadian Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young joined the Timberwolves in a three-way deal designed to send Kevin Love to the Cavaliers.
“It’s been a crazy summer,” said Wiggins, who was raised in Vaughan, Ont., and who on Tuesday found himself sitting on a platform under a tent alongside Bennett, Young and Zach Lavine. “Kind of up and down. [I’ve been] at kind of at a loss.”
So that’s the “Crazy Dance” taken care of. The question is: will the Timberwolves, like the “Hurricane,” continue to be one of the NBA’s natural disasters? It’s been 10 years and — what? — three rebuilds since the Timberwolves made the NBA playoffs. They remain the franchise that couldn’t keep Kevin Garnett happy, much like the Toronto Raptors were, until last season, the club that never recovered from Vince Carter’s departure.
Just as that reputation didn’t entirely do the Raptors justice (it’s wise to remember that both Vince Carter and Chris Bosh re-signed with the Raptors) so, too, does Timberwolves head coach, president of basketball operations and part owner Flip Saunders feel the need every now and then to remind people that Garnett actually spent 12 years with the Timberwolves and signed three separate contracts.
“The perception that Love left because Garnett left … that’s not the right perception,” Saunders told Twin Cities reporters when the deal with the Cavaliers and 76ers was made official. “Garnett loved it here and he gave a lot to this organization and wanted to stay here. Anybody who’s here for 12 years, it shows his commitment to the organization. We feel that we’ve got players who are going to have that same type of commitment.”
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Saunders went on to state that he believes there has been a culture change in the NBA; that the cities themselves no longer determine the destinations de jour as much as players, particularly the opportunity to play with winning players, determine which city is a destination. This is what the Raptors and general manager Masai Ujiri are also selling, and there is evidence to suggest they are right. Perhaps it’s merely cyclical, but it sure seems as if many of the NBA’s one-time Rolls Royce clubs, like the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, are in something of a lull or at least a serious rebuilding phase.
Of the four players assembled at the Minnesota State Fair, it will fall mostly on Wiggins to form the Timberwolves’ nucleus along with holdover guard Ricky Rubio. He said all the right things, of course: about how he just wanted a home — any home — and that he found the situation in Minnesota to be “comforting.”
There is anecdotal and mostly second-hand evidence to suggest Wiggins is at least slightly miffed at how he was treated by James — chiefly, a suggestion by his former high school coach that Wiggins probably didn’t care what James thought of him, which of course means that he does — or at least is a little taken aback at how James practically fell over himself luring Love to Cleveland.
Wiggins held his tongue on Tuesday when he was asked whether he knew he was on his way out from Cleveland as soon as James showed up, noting that when the best player in the NBA joins your team, “it’s going to be all joy and happiness.”
But of the four players at the Minnesota State Fair, the one with the real chip on his shoulder was Wiggins’s fellow Canadian, Anthony Bennett.
Indeed, it can be argued that of the newcomers no player stands to gain from this transaction as much as Bennett, the first-overall pick by the Cavaliers in 2012. After a summer of inactivity due to a knee injury, Bennett averaged a newer 12 minutes and missed 30 games. He averaged 4.2 points and three rebounds per game and became the first No. 1 pick since Kwame Brown in 2002 to not make either the first or second All-Rookie team due to non-injuries.
Yet, with the Timberwolves and coming off a decent showing in the Summer League, Bennett is no longer a first-overall pick; he is, as Saunders described him, “a rotation-type player.” Nothing more, nothing less.
And with that, two members of Canada’s golden generation of hoopsters put down roots on Tuesday, each after their own roller-coaster ride.