Dunking With Wolves
Fansided

A Fan’s Experience at the Timberwolves Draft Party

By Drew Mahowald

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It’s a swell time to be a Timberwolves fan.

There hasn’t been this much optimism among Wolves fans in over a decade, and with good reason. The Timberwolves front office has built what looks like a very strong nucleus of young talent in the last few years.

After last night’s draft, Karl-Anthony Towns and Tyus Jones join a young Timberwolves team that already has talented young players such as Andrew Wiggins, Shabazz Muhammad, Gorgui Dieng, Zach LaVine, and Ricky Rubio. (Yes, Ricky is still young. He’s only 24, people.)

With all this optimism, it’s easy to understand why last night’s Minnesota Timberwolves draft party at Target Center was such a hit. I’m not sure on exactly how many people attended, but I heard anywhere from 8,000 to over 10,000. You’d have to think it was about the same amount of people as the Wolves-Sixers game at Target Center last season.

The atmosphere in the building was absolutely electric. There was a different kind of buzz going around the building in anticipation of the Timberwolves’ first overall selection. Everyone there, including myself, was loving the national media attention.

With about 20 minutes until the start of the draft, Brian Windhorst reported on ESPN that Towns would indeed be the pick for the Timberwolves and cheers erupted. I mean, it’s not like it was a surprise to anyone, but this finally allowed Wolves fans to relax. Any doubts they may have had of Flip Saunders and Co. messing this up could be eliminated.

After a spectacular video presentation just before the beginning of the NBA Draft by Timberwolves Entertainment Network (this gave me chills, by the way, much like their Kevin Garnett return video did), it was time for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to announce the first overall pick and make Towns to Minnesota a reality.

I recorded a video of the scene at the draft party as the pick was announced. Please keep in mind that I am in no way a professional cameraman and this was recorded on a cell phone.

We got him. The best player in the draft is on the Timberwolves’ roster for the second year in a row.

Soon after, Flip Saunders walked on stage and answered a few questions from Fox Sports North play-by-play man Dave Benz. After speaking briefly about Towns, Saunders then called Towns on the phone and they had a brief conversation in front of thousands of fans (however, I couldn’t hear well from Towns’ end, but still, pretty cool).

Towns told Saunders and the fans about his winning attitude and that he’s going to contribute and do whatever it takes to help the Wolves win. To end the conversation, Saunders asked Towns what his nickname should be. Saunders suggested “KAT” or “Big KAT”. Towns responded with: “The fans can call me whatever they want.”

Next, Saunders thanked the crowd for being there and told everyone that he and his front office crew were going to try to move up (this is foreshadowing). That resulted in a big roar from the Wolves faithful.

As the evening wore on, the amount of fans left in the building slowly began to decrease. Especially as picks from roughly 17-21 were announced without any news of a Timberwolves trade, some fans thought that the Wolves might have missed their window for a trade and figured they could catch picks #31 and #36 at home.

Other fans stuck around waiting primarily to see what would happen with Apple Valley, Minnesota native Tyus Jones. As he began to slide past his projected landing spots (most notably #18 to Houston and #21 to Dallas), fans began to buzz about the possibility of Tyus “coming home” to Minnesota. In fact, I even fell for it.

Right after the Mavericks passed on Jones with the 21st overall pick, things really got interesting. You almost had a sense that it was destiny that Jones would wind up in Minnesota at night’s end. Furthermore, it seemed as if Wolves fans would’ve walked out of that draft party disappointed with “just” Towns. Many fans became set on this happening.

I suggested sending Anthony Bennett back to Cleveland in a deal if they drafted Jones. Hey, I came pretty close.

For most of the night, I tried to stay off my Twitter timeline so I wouldn’t find out the picks before they were announced. However, when the Jones-to-Minnesota trade possibility became very real, I couldn’t help but check Yahoo! Sports NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski’s Twitter feed. What I saw was pretty awesome.

As I read this, I started to hear random little cheers spew throughout the arena. Once in a while, I’d hear a “TYUS!”. Word was spreading quickly: Tyus Jones was actually going to be a Timberwolf.

And yes, I recorded a video of the Target Center reaction to the announcement of the Jones trade.

Hopefully, my videos in this post give a hint of what the Target Center was like last night. The attitude of Wolves fans is completely different from that of a few years ago. There is a bunch of legitimate optimism in the Twin Cities, and for good reason.

One thing is for sure: people in Minnesota care about basketball now. The addition of the best player in the NBA Draft in Karl-Anthony Towns and the addition of the hometown kid in Tyus Jones will spark interest among Minnesota sports fans in the Timberwolves. Ticket prices will surely increase for the 2015-16 season, which is a shame for me because I’m a broke college kid. (Let’s just hope that the Timberwolves continue their $5 college night promo.)

At the end of the day, it’s a super exciting time to be a Timberwolves fan. Once all of this young talent gets comfortable at the pro level and with each other, the Timberwolves are going to wreak havoc in the NBA.

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