Wiggins ready to excel at both ends of the floor for Wolves

Editor's note: Third in a three-part series on the players acquired by the Wolves for Kevin Love

Unlike baldness or musical intuition, some traits or talents don't skip a generation. In Timberwolves rookie Andrew Wiggins' family, there apparently are few recessive genes.

From a father who played basketball professionally across North America and Europe for two decades and a mother who won two Olympic track silver medals, there's much in both mind and body that has been handed down.

When Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders chose Wiggins as the fitting centerpiece to a Kevin Love trade, he did so because he envisions a 19-year-old drafted first overall by Cleveland last summer becoming the rarest of NBA species: What Saunders calls an "elite" two-way player who can change a game on both ends of the floor because of his 7-foot wingspan and "freakish" athleticism combined with the precious drive to maximize both.

"It's tough to find a lot of those guys in our league," Saunders said.

A quick head count reveals only a handful of candidates — Cleveland's LeBron James, Indiana's Paul George, maybe San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard — if you don't include recovering Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, who belongs on a list of his own with such names as Michael Jordan and James.

"The best players of all time have always been two-way players," Wiggins said. "I want to be great."

At 6-8, Wiggins possesses the kind of physical attributes required to become such a player: A lean body he clearly will grow into as he ages, a 44-inch vertical leap that'd be jaw-dropping if teammates Zach LaVine and Glenn Robinson III didn't approach his own jumping, as well as those long arms and that considerable reach.

"I've been blessed," he said.

He also apparently has an awareness that more is required than mere physical gifts, as great as they might be. It's a message his father, Mitchell, has preached since Andrew was but a child.

A father's advice

A 6-4 shooting guard, Mitchell Wiggins played six seasons with three teams in an NBA career abbreviated by a suspension for cocaine use. Four of those seasons were spent in Houston, where he played alongside such players as Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson, Lewis Lloyd, John Lucas and Rodney McCray. Their offensive talents trumped his considerable own on a team that reached the 1986 NBA Finals.

He found what he calls "my niche," that the best way to stay on the floor was through defense. It was an attribute — "our lockdown perimeter defender," former teammate Jim Petersen termed him — that the Rockets used to counteract everyone from Jordan and Magic Johnson to Isiah Thomas.

"Mitch," Wolves assistant coach Sam Mitchell said, "now, he'd get up into you."

And the father passed the word along to the son, even if young Andrew was naturally drawn to the flash of whirling dunks and ankle-busting offensive moves that made him a YouTube sensation by the time he was 13.

"I didn't really watch no defensive highlights," Andrew Wiggins said. "Growing up, you just want excitement. You just want to see dunks, crossovers, stuff like that. I was just like everyone else."

But everyone else didn't have a father who played professionally everywhere from Los Angeles' Fabulous Forum to Fort Wayne and far beyond, who could tell him explicitly, exactly what to do regarding opponents' tendencies as well as what to avoid in life at any cost.

"My dad was a great defender, loved picking up full court, physical," Wiggins said. "He always put it in my head from a young age."

Playing older brothers Nick and Mitchell Jr. — professional and/or collegiate players themselves — on the driveway and in the gym taught competitiveness. Observing his father and mother, champion track sprinter Marita Payne-Wiggins, taught the commitment it takes to be a world-class athlete.

All of it apparently combined to instill the will to defend.

"There are a lot of guys who have that athleticism and wingspan but they don't embrace it and they don't become great defenders," said Indiana coach Frank Vogel, who in four years has watched Pacers forward Paul George grow from defensively inclined into a gifted offensive player and an All Star. "You could tell Paul's second year in the league. We played September pickup games and he'd get out and pressure like it was Game 7.

"It's about passion, desire. The really good ones, the great ones, those guys have that."

Taking it personally

Mitchell Wiggins said his son matured when he reached junior high school, discovering a pride in stopping opponents that bloomed when he reached high school and insisted upon defending fellow national recruits Jabari Parker and Julius Randle during national AAU and prep-school games.

By the time he played one collegiate season at Kansas, that pride became something of an obsession. Mitchell Wiggins remembers a game against Duke when his son found early foul trouble and watched from the bench as his man scored at will.

"You could see it on his face," his father said. "He doesn't like to be scored on. It just gets to him. He takes it personal. A lot of young guys worry about stats and the points they put up. Andrew wants to win, and he understands defense wins ballgames. It's the difference maker."

His son also apparently doesn't like it when his man scores on somebody else.

"Well, we were losing that night," Andrew Wiggins said, "so that made it even worse."

Saunders envisions Wiggins will reach an elite level at both court's ends and be able to defend as many as four positions because of the speed with which he can close ground, a second jump after he has already landed that is incredibly quick and efficient and a shooting stroke that is more polished than people realize.

More than once, he has mentioned former Chicago Bulls great Scottie Pippen's name when speaking about his new star.

"He's not Scottie Pippen, let me correct that right now," Saunders said. "He has the same attributes — just his length and physically Scottie was a lot stronger than he looked — that Scottie had when he came into the league."

Wiggins' new teammates already have seen the telltale signs in practice of what they believe he will become. Veteran Thaddeus Young calls him "very, very raw right now," but foresees a player who enters the league at age 19 just like he did seven years ago becoming "something great."

"The thing is he wants it," Young said. "Right now, he has to get that fierce dog in him. Right now, he's too much of a nice guy, always smiling, which is a good thing. But you want him to get mean on the court sometimes."

Starting with Wednesday's season opener at Memphis, Wiggins' influence probably will be felt most on the defensive end.

"If any player coming out of college right now tells you he can score 20 a night … ," Sam Mitchell said. "I mean, c'mon, they're delusional. The one thing they can do is play hard. You can play hard and play defense because that's effort and if you have the physical tools, then you have the chance to be exceptional at it.

"We think Andrew has the physical tools, and he's smart enough to understand it. Having a dad who played in the NBA, he's smart enough."

At such a young age, Wiggins has fame that has followed him since he was 13, the kind of talent that justifies the draft's top pick and just maybe the common sense needed to fulfill all of it.

"I was nowhere near as talented when I was 19," veteran teammate Kevin Martin said. "I didn't know anything about the NBA then. I sure wasn't doing any Adidas commercials."