Ricky Rubio entered the Minnesota Timberwolves' 2014-15 training camp looking to find out if the sky really is the limit with his new young running buddies, most notably first-round draft picks Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine.
“I like to run and I like to throw the ball up in the air,” the effervescent Spanish point guard said during the Wolves' media day session on Monday, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “They’re players who can catch the ball. Hopefully, they make me look good. I haven’t seen them in real life, but I’ve seen them in video and they can jump high. So I’m going to throw the ball over the backboard and see if they can catch it.”
I'm not sure you can necessarily call "Dunks After Dark" a "real life" NBA experience. But at the Wolves' camp-opening scrimmage and exhibition on the campus of Minnesota State University, Mankato, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Rubio — and the rest of us — got our first glimpse at how the exciting rookies look finishing the break in Timberwolves togs.
The first scrimmage began by giving the fans in attendance and all those watching on NBA TV the Rubio-to-Wiggins 'oop we've been envisioning ever since the completion of blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers that shipped out All-Star Kevin Love and imported the last two No. 1 overall picks:
We also saw new Wolves power forward Thaddeus Young and incumbent swingman Corey Brewer show some hustle to spark a sharp-passing break that finished off with a flush by the skywalking LaVine:
... and a thunderous fast-break finish by a slimmer, sleeker and seemingly more explosive Shabazz Muhammad:
After the scrimmages wrapped up, the Wolves capped the evening with an impromtpu end-to-end freestyle dunking display featuring some impressive work from Wiggins, LaVine, Bennett and fellow bouncy rook Glenn Robinson III, as highlighted — in slow motion, and with some very dramatic background music! — by our friends at the National Basketball Association:
Man, Wiggins and LaVine really make getting off the floor look easy, don't they? (For my money, though, the free-breathing Bennett's two-hand windmill might've been the best of the night.)
Things won't be quite so easy for these Timberpups once "real life" NBA play starts, of course; there'll be defenders to beat and defense to play, and clogged passing and driving lanes, and shots contested a bit more vigorously than those taken at 1 a.m. local time on a college campus in September. But even with the harsh lessons of professionalism, and likely a raft of losses, waiting just around the corner, Minnesota's youth movement gives its fans something to get excited about. More from Zgoda:
“With our rookies, we’ve got a lot of potential,” Rubio said. “I wouldn’t say we took a step back to make two forward; we just have to see how they fit in the league. A player can be all hype and have great potential, but not everybody fits well in this league. We’ll see how the rookies fit and how they fit with us, too.”
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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