Dressed in a Navy blue tuxedo with shiny black lapels, Andrew Wiggins certainly looked the part whil...

1. Andrew Wiggins is 1st Canadian to be named NBA 's top
rookie
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.
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He looked even better on the court in his first season in the league.
Wiggins became the first Minnesota Timberwolves player and Canadian 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 with 14 first-place votes and 335 points 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.

2. 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.
Wiggins was the No. 1 overall pick by the Cavaliers last June, but was traded to the Timberwolves in
August in the deal that sent disgruntled star Kevin Love to Cleveland. He won the first four Western
Conference rookie of the month awards to make himself the prohibitive favourite to be named rookie
of the year.
"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 offence, could play defence. Last year, Aug. 23, when we traded for Andrew Wiggins we got
that type of player. And we were ready and set to go."
James pushed hard for the Cavaliers to bring in Love, the three-time All-Star and his teammate from
the London Olympics.
Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders demanded Wiggins be a part of the
package. After some back-and-forth, 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. As teammate after
teammate went down, more responsibility fell on to Wiggins' shoulders. Forced to become a focal
point at 19 years old, he responded by becoming more assertive and more aggressive on both ends
of the court than he ever was in his lone season at Kansas.
His dunks over Utah centre Rudy Gobert and New Orleans big man Omer Asik were in the final
month of the season were highlights for a team that finished an NBA-worst 16-66.
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Wiggins averaged 19.1 points per game after Jan. 1 and in his final 13 games of the season, he
scored 23.3 points, dished out 3.5 assists and took 10 free throws per game.
"For the first time pretty much in this organization we have a player who can do that in Wiggins, to

3. be point blank," Saunders said. "He can make something happen out of nothing. He got to the free
throw line ... He scored at a high level, he attacked the basket, so the way the game is that
athleticism, you have to have something to hold onto that."
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