Andrew Wiggins thriving with rebuilding Timberwolves

TORONTO – A year ago Andrew Wiggins was starring as a freshman for the Kansas Jayhawks and getting set to take on Western Kentucky in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

Wednesday, Wiggins was back in his hometown – his lone March Madness experience now just a part of his basketball memory box – preparing for what most Canadian basketball fans have been waiting for since he was selected first overall at the NBA draft last June: his first pro game at the Air Canada Centre.

The Timberwolves rookie’s homecoming made for quite the media scene in Toronto and gave a glimpse into what covering a sports franchise in the middle a deep post-season run might look like in this city, yet Wiggins wasn’t fazed by all the attention.

“You get used to it,” he told the horde of reporters who gathered inside the ACC prior to scoring 15 points in the Timberwolves 105-100 loss to the Raptors Wednesday night.

The cameras, microphones and attention – even the Prime Minister came out to the game –  surrounding the 20-year-old small forward should come as no surprise, really, considering many have been following his basketball journey since his early days at Vaughan Secondary, a high school nestled in a Toronto suburb just 45 minutes north of the downtown core.

That same teenager who lit up YouTube as a 15-year-old, is now widely considered to be the favourite to win NBA rookie of the year.

“We’re excited about his development,” said Timberwolves assistant coach Sam Mitchell. “He’s still a young player with a lot of work and growth left to do, but we’re very happy with what we’ve seen so far.”

Wiggins is averaging 15.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game while shooting 43.5 per cent from the field thus far this season, has been named Western Conference rookie of the month four times and has put up some big performances against some of the league’s top teams.

Back in January he scored a season high 33 points against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers and three weeks later he put up 30 against James Harden and the Houston Rockets.

Though both impressive individual performances came in losses, Wiggins feels showing up against the NBA’s top teams – and stars – is how he can earn respect in the league as a young player.

“I play hard against those guys and try to compete,” Wiggins said. “Those are the best players in the game so I just try and do my best.”

“They go at me too. It’s a no mercy league.”

While there have been no shortage of positives to pull from Wiggins’s rookie season – he’s also been able to learn from “one of the all-time greats” in Kevin Garnett, who was acquired by Minnesota prior to the trade deadline – his first year out of college has certainly presented some challenges as well.

Wiggins was asked Wednesday how he’s holding up physically and he admitted the grind of the 82-game schedule is beginning to take its toll on his body.

“This is the time of year when you feel [the fatigue],” Wiggins, who’s played in all of Minnesota’s 67 games thus far, said. “After all the games we’ve played, the injuries we’ve had and the big minutes [I’ve been] playing. But I’ve been taking care of my body and eating right just to stay in the position I’m in.”

Mitchell says that while Wiggins is struggling with fatigue, he’s also showing mental strength in his ability to continue to play at a high level.

“You don’t necessarily measure his growth in points and rebounds, sometimes you measure it in the mental part of the game, “said Mitchell, who served as Minnesota’s head coach Wednesday as Flip Saunders was forced to miss the game for personal reasons.“This is a grind. Andrew played 30-plus games [in college] — we did that in two months.

“This is three seasons all rolled into one for a college player so for him to have not missed a game tells you a lot about his makeup… It’s a huge thing if he can play 82 games this year.”