During the team’s 33-year history, there may not be a more perfect Minnesota Timberwolves player than Andrew Wiggins.
A franchise that has suffered through the Christian Laettner pick, Joe Smith’s under-the-table contract and the entire David Kahn era has been through enough, but nothing compared to watching Wiggins turn into Dennis Rodman during the NBA Finals.
Unfortunately it was for Golden State.
After pulling down a career-high 16 rebounds in a Game 4 victory over the Boston Celtics, he came back with 13 rebounds in Game 5, helping the Warriors take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series and eventually win the NBA title.
The performance had to have Timberwolves fans beside themselves. How could a player own a 43-inch vertical and average 4.4 rebounds per game? How could that player suddenly double his average in this year’s playoffs? And how could that player single-handedly tilt the NBA Finals thanks to his newfound ability to crash the boards?
Wiggins answered these questions during an appearance on the Point Forward podcast with Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner. He explained that the Western Conference Semifinal series with the Memphis Grizzlies finally taught him the importance of rebounding and that carried over to his legendary performance in the Finals.
Wait for it‼@22wiggins, NBA champ and rising All-Star, drops bars on the new pod, which comes out tomorrow.
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— Point Forward (@pointforward) July 7, 2022
“You got to figure out different ways to get [the ball[, so let me try and get my feet wet, go in there and rebound the ball,” Wiggins explained. “Especially when we played small in the Memphis series and I had to rebound. I’m in there rebounding and I’m like ‘This ain’t that hard! I can rebound!'”
This type of realization is usually reserved for a fifth-grade basketball tournament, but it took for the playoff semifinals for the light bulb to finally go off. The moment was so shocking, that even his teammates were impressed.
“I was getting dressed, [Steph Curry] was getting dressed, I think Wiggs was getting ready to shower,” Draymond Green said on his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show.” “[Warriors Senior Vice President of Communications Raymond Ridder] walks over and he’s like ‘Yeah man, it’s your most rebounds in any game, your highest before that was 11…”
“Steph looked up and I said ‘Wow, Wiggs, that’s incredible, 16 rebounds? But we must tell you how pathetic that is that your previous high was only 11 rebounds’ and Wiggs said ‘I know, man.’ ‘But forget that, you got it done tonight brother! When we needed it the most and it was absolutely amazing!”
As most Timberwolves fans know, a big performance doesn’t mean that Wiggins has suddenly turned into Wilt Chamberlain.
Wiggins’ mercurial career has made him an enigma and could send him regressing to the mean next season. For now, Wiggins believes he’s a changed man.
“I’ll never average four rebounds again,” Wiggins said. “I look back now like ‘How?’ I wasn’t really thinking straight. I look back now, I don’t know how that was possible.
