Funny what happens when you get the No. 1 pick.
The Wolves will parlay their draft status into the marquee slot at the Las Vegas Summer League, when they'll play and the Los Angeles Lakers in a featured 7:30 pm Central time game on its opening day, July 10.
It'll be a meeting of No. 1 and 2 picks, of course, on NBA TV.
The league did the same last year, putting Cleveland's No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins against Milwaukee's No. 2 Jabari Parker. They did so at the smaller Cox Pavilion, which fans jammed full and waited in long lines outside just to get into a game that seemed a bit like the playoffs in July.
This time, the NBA is putting the Wolves-Lakers game in the bigger Thomas and Mack Center arena next door.
The Wolves also will play Chicago (July 11, 5:30 pm Central time) and Utah (July 13, 9:30 pm Central time) in their other preliminary round games. All three games will be in the big arena, which has never happened before for the Wolves until they won the No. 1 pick this year.
Meanwhile, the Wolves continue draft workouts at Target Center this week. The plan is to bring top players Karl-Anthony Towns, Jahlil Okafor, D'Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay in for two days each, one of which will include a workout.
Wolves scouts are flying into town -- long-timer Zarko Durisic arrived on a late-night flight from L.A. last night -- to start 10 days of intense preparation and meetings that will culminate in the team selecting first for the first time, on June 25.
