As the smiling remote faces on the TV screen were reduced to two Thursday night — D'Angelo Russell for the Wolves and Stephen Curry for the Warriors, representing the two teams still in play for the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft lottery drawing — the past fears and future hopes of Wolves fans came into full view.
Would the lottery gods finally smile on the Wolves, giving them the No. 1 pick and launching them into a more promising future that includes Russell? Or would they laugh at them again, giving the Warriors and Curry the top pick?
Turns out the Wolves won for a change. And still …
The more fatalistic of Wolves followers couldn't help, after the dust settled, to still make a horrifying connection to Curry and the Warriors. After all, it was 11 years ago when the Wolves — with the Nos. 5 and 6 picks in the draft, directly ahead of the Warriors at No. 7 — passed twice on the future Hall of Fame guard.
And now, if both teams keep their picks, another issue rises that will be judged for years to come: Will the Wolves make the correct pick at No. 1 overall, or will the Warriors one pick after them eclipse them again — leading to another generation of woulda-coulda-shoulda laments and novelty T-shirts like the one pictured above?
I know. I know. In general the Wolves are and should be ecstatic to land the No. 1 overall pick for just the second time in franchise history while wiping away, finally, the stain of never previously having moved up from their pre-draft slot in the lottery (a fate that had about a 1% chance of being their reality based on some numbers I crunched last year).
But Curry's presence made it impossible to avoid thinking about the past.
Then again, maybe Russell's presence at least eased some of that pain? He represents both the 2015 draft — when the Wolves clearly picked the right player, Karl-Anthony Towns, No. 1 overall — and the acumen of the current regime after he was acquired in a smart trade that shed the Wolves of the albatross of Andrew Wiggins.
