Minneapois ? Dressed in a Navy blue tuxedo with shiny black lapels, Andrew Wiggins certainly looked the part while collecting his NBA rookie of the year award Thursday.
He looked even better on the court in his first season in the league.
Wiggins became the first Minnesota Timberwolves player to win the rookie of the year, and he did it in a landslide. He received 110 of 130 first-place votes and had 604 points in the voting. Chicago’s Nikola Mirotic finished second and Philadelphia’s Nerlens Noel was third.
“It means a lot to me. I know it means a lot to the organization and there’s a whole lot of history,” Wiggins said. “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. We’ve got a lot of young talent.”
After coming to the Timberwolves in the trade that sent Kevin Love to Cleveland, Wiggins averaged 16.9 points and 4.6 rebounds while playing all 82 games.
Wiggins was drafted No. 1 overall by the Cavaliers last summer and has been a heavily hyped prospect since he was a teenager growing up in Toronto. He lived up to that in his first year in the NBA, emerging as the new centerpiece of a franchise that has not made the playoffs for 11 straight years.
“When I first came here a couple years ago, I met with (owner Glen Taylor) and said the No. 1 thing we had to do to build a franchise and develop that culture was to get a game-changing type player,” coach and team president Flip Saunders said. “A player that was a two-way type player that could play offense, could play defense. Last year, Aug. 23, when we traded for Andrew Wiggins we got that type of player. And we were ready and set to go.”
The Timberwolves started the summer in an incredibly difficult position, with Love wanting to be traded and the team in yet another in a seemingly endless line of rebuilding projects. Then something unfamiliar happened — a stroke of luck in their favor.
After a good freshman season at Kansas, Wiggins was drafted No. 1 overall last June by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not long after, James decided to leave Miami and return home to Cleveland, setting up a possible pairing with Wiggins. The two shared something in common as super-hyped teenagers and No. 1 picks, but his stay in Cleveland was short-lived.
Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders demanded Wiggins be a part of the package. The Cavaliers relented and sent Wiggins and Anthony Bennett to Minnesota in a three-team deal that netted them Love.
After finding his way through the first month of the season, Wiggins took off. He averaged 19.1 points per game after Jan. 1 and in his final 13 games, he scored 23.3 points.
