After five and a half years with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Andrew Wiggins was shipped to Golden State in 2020, and it’s where he has been ever since.
And while Wiggins seems happy enough with the Warriors, something about his exit from the Wolves still bothers him today.
As Wiggins approached the rim, Towns started to rise with him, giving some thought to contesting the dunk attempt. But the force may have surprised him. Towns wanted to see that fire from Wiggins, especially after Jimmy Butler’s exit, one that implicated both Towns and Wiggins as too soft around the league. Wiggins shrugged it off like he did everything else. Nothing got to him. Nothing bothered him, except for how things ended in Minnesota.
Ex-Timberwolves President Gersson Rosas made it a point to establish a personal relationship with Wiggins, and the rest of the team, at one point even holding Wiggins’ daughter in his arms.
What really bothered Wiggins, according to players who have kept in touch with him since he joined Golden State, was the perceived hypocrisy of it all. One thing that Wiggins has always valued is family. It is everything to him. So when Rosas arrived and started to preach the importance of family to Wiggins, organized a trip to the Bahamas, met with Wiggins’ family, it resonated with him. At a Twins game during Rosas’ first summer on the job, he cradled Wiggins’ daughter in his arms and promised to build a relationship not just with Wiggins the player, but Wiggins the person.
But after all that effort, and the emphasis he put on loyalty and family, he turned around and traded Wiggs in a sudden move — all before he was eventually fired for perpetuating a toxic and dysfunctional culture in the locker room.
Rosas preached the importance of staying together, of bonding and fighting even when they were undermanned. So when Rosas traded him, Wiggins didn’t flip out, because he never flips out. But he did find it funny, all that talk about family and togetherness only to see Rosas trade all but two of the players that took that Bahamas trip before Rosas’ tenure was even a year old. Then came Rosas’ unceremonious exit just before training camp, and it did not go unnoticed.
“That man held my daughter,” Wiggins said with disdain to anyone who asked him about both his trade and his reaction to the firing of Rosas.
Looking back, it’s hard to call Wiggins; tenure in Minnesota a failure. While he never did live up to expectations as a first overall pick, he did develop into a star while helping to put the Timberwolves back on the map in the west.
It’s just unfortunate that things had to end the way they did, but it’s another example of the brutal and harsh reality of the NBA.
