Timberwolves’ Wiggins looks into the future
He hopes to play for Canada at some point
TORONTO — Andrew Wiggins knows he’ll play for Canada again. The 23-year-old Minnesota Timberwolves forward just isn’t sure when that might be.
“I want to play in the future but I can’t tell the future so I’m going to try and play but we’ll see what happens,” Wiggins said Wednesday ahead of the Timberwolves’ game in Toronto against his hometown Raptors.
Wiggins, from nearby Vaughan, sat out Canada’s World Cup qualifying games over the summer and into September. Despite his absence, the Canadian men’s senior team finished 7-1 and is tied with Venezuela atop the Group F standings to earn qualification out of the Americas region for the 2019 tournament.
Despite missing out for “a lot of personal reasons” Wiggins watched Canada’s games and hopes to join the team at some point in the future.
“As you can see, they didn’t need me to win those games,” Wiggins said. “They were hooping, playing good together, playing as a team, playing like they wanted to win. Everyone brought their own thing to the table, they brought a lot.”
More pressing is the Timberwolves’ season that is off to a rocky start with star Jimmy Butler demanding to be traded and then reportedly going on a rant against head coach Tom Thibodeau and Wiggins, among others, at the team’s first practice of the season.
“People are exaggerating a lot of the stuff,” said Wiggins, who says he and Butler have always been cool. “Even when people say I was involved. Nothing happened to me. I was just playing basketball. That problem, I think, is resolved. Whatever that problem is, is resolved.”
Wiggins, who has missed just one game over his five seasons in the NBA, was a game-time decision against the Raptors on Wednesday night.
He suffered a right thigh contusion in the first quarter of the Timberwolves’ 101-91 win over the visiting Indiana Pacers on Monday.
Thibodeau said the No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 NBA draft is off to a great start this season. Wiggins is averaging 15.8 points, two assists and 1.3 steals per game after four contests.
“He got nicked up right at the beginning of the last game but his aggressiveness has been very good thus far,” said Thibodeau.
“I’ve mentioned this many times, people tend to measure things statistically, like by points scored, and I thought he had a terrific year last year and his scoring went down but the winning went up.”
Wiggins averaged 23.6 points per game in the 2016-17 season but the Timberwolves were 31-51, 13th in the Western Conference.