Toronto gave Andrew Wiggins a warm welcome home Wednesday night, but the NBA’s leading Rookie of the Year candidate struggled with 15 points and three rebounds in a foul-plagued performance.
The Raptors held off the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves 105-100, and Wiggins cleverly downplayed rumors about the possibility of someday playing for his hometown squad.
Wiggins says he’s totally focused on his current situation with the T-Pups.
Per the Toronto Star:
Canada’s Prime Minister never came to a Raptors game when Steve Nash visited Toronto every year, but he came Wednesday night. Stephen Harper’s plainclothes security detail swept through the building, very serious, and he was trailed by a small herd of staff, one of whom presumably sent out the tweet of the PM with two visiting Canadian NBA players, and only misidentified one of them. Rookie mistake, I guess.
“It goes by quick,” said Wiggins, before Toronto’s struggle-filled 105-100 win. “It definitely does, so you just have to cherish the moments, whether they’re in college or the NBA. You can only go through both of them once.”
Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri tiptoed right up to the tampering line last week when he was asked if there was one player he wanted to see in Toronto, not including LeBron James, and he said, “We all know who he is, I’m not even going to say his name. He might be Canadian.” […] But by the time the Raptors chase Wiggins, he’ll be closer to fully formed. Asked about it, Wiggins smiled his impossibly wide smile and said, “I love Minnesota. They treat me nice up there. I plan to be there a very, very, very long time.”
