Jaden McDaniels has become one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA and is a key player for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The 26-year-old has been a part of the team since he was drafted in 2020. He is entering his seventh season now and has committed his future to the Wolves.
According to ESPN, McDaniels has put pen to paper on a rare one-year extension worth $40 million that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2029-30 season.
But if he had got his wish six years ago, he would be as far away from the Timberwolves as possible.
Jaden McDaniels says he never wanted to join the Minnesota Timberwolves
McDaniels was selected 28th in the 2020 draft by the Los Angeles Lakers before his draft rights eventually ended up with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Of course, getting into a team is a dream for any youngster, but the defender was praying that the Wolves would stay away from him. He just didn’t want to go there.
However, as fate would have it, McDaniels had to join the Minnesota side, but luckily for him, that has changed his life over the last six years.
Now, after signing a lucrative extension, he has admitted why he didn’t want to join the Timberwolves all those years ago.
“In the draft process, I didn’t know where I was going. This was actually the team I was trying to stay away from,” he told Dane Moore on X:
“So I ended up coming here not knowing how it was gonna be. The first year was terrible, but after that, we started winning, building, getting better and adding more pieces. It has just been a good situation.”
When asked why he was against a move to the Wolves, he said: “Yeah, they were just bad. Just bad as f***.”
The Timberwolves were coming off a 19–45 campaign and stuck near the bottom of the Western Conference before the 2020 draft, so McDaniels’ stance is understandable.
But together, the player and the team have grown immensely over the last few years and are now seen as one of the contenders in the Western Conference.
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