Corey Brewer
The lottery wing from Florida's dynasty who never got Minnesota over the hump — but ran the floor, picked pockets, and once dropped 51 in a single night during the darkest years the franchise ever knew.
He arrived as the Timberwolves were burying one dynasty and waiting a decade for the next, and he spent two separate tours as the most restless pair of legs on some of the worst teams the franchise ever fielded.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 5, 1986, Portland, Tennessee |
| College | Florida (three seasons; NCAA champion 2006 and 2007) |
| Drafted | No. 7 overall, 2007 |
| Seasons as a Wolf | Two stints: 2007–2011, 2013–2015 |
| Number | 22 (2007–11), 13 (2013–15) |
The arrival. Minnesota took Corey Brewer seventh overall in the 2007 draft, and the timing tells the whole story. Brewer had just finished cutting down nets at Florida — back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007, alongside Joakim Noah and Al Horford, and Most Outstanding Player of the 2007 Final Four. He landed in a Minnesota that had, weeks later, shipped Kevin Garnett to Boston. The winning he’d known his entire basketball life stopped at the door. What he brought instead was length, motor, and a defender’s instincts: a 6-foot-9 wing who could guard three positions and never stopped moving. It was exactly the profile a rebuild wants. It was also a profile that needed a good team around it, and Minnesota did not have one.
The interruption. His second season ended before it started to matter. On November 29, 2008, against Denver, Brewer tore the ACL in his knee; surgery followed on December 17, and his year was over at 15 games. He came back for 2009-10 and delivered the best full season of his young career — 13.0 points a night across all 82 starts — but the team beneath him went 15-67, one of the ugliest records in franchise history. Brewer was doing his job on a roster where doing your job earned you 15 wins. Midway through 2010-11 the front office moved on, sending him out in the three-team blockbuster built around Carmelo Anthony. He never played a game for the Knicks who technically acquired him; waived, he signed with Dallas and won a championship ring that spring — the title Minnesota fans watched from home, wondering what might have been.
The return. He came back. In July 2013 Brewer signed a three-year deal to rejoin the Wolves, older and sharper, and slotted into a genuinely fun offense next to Ricky Rubio, Kevin Love and Kevin Martin. This was the version fans remember most fondly: the tireless leak-out man, sprinting the floor the instant a shot went up, waiting for a Rubio outlet pass that always seemed to find him. He averaged 12.3 points and 1.9 steals across 81 starts in 2013-14, and then, on one April night, he did something no role player is supposed to do.
By the numbers
Regular-season stats (Wolves tenure), per Basketball-Reference:
| Season | GP | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | 79 | 5.8 | 3.7 | 1.4 | 1.0 | .374 | .194 |
| 2008-09 | 15 | 6.2 | 3.3 | 1.7 | 1.0 | .411 | .417 |
| 2009-10 | 82 | 13.0 | 3.4 | 2.4 | 1.4 | .431 | .346 |
| 2010-11 | 56 | 8.6 | 2.7 | 1.4 | 1.6 | .384 | .263 |
| 2013-14 | 81 | 12.3 | 2.6 | 1.7 | 1.9 | .481 | .280 |
| 2014-15 | 24 | 10.5 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 2.3 | .418 | .195 |
(2014-15 line is the Minnesota portion only; Brewer was traded to Houston that December.)
Wolves career totals
Franchise ranks
- 4th Steals (502)
Per the all-time franchise leaderboard — behind only Kevin Garnett, Ricky Rubio and Anthony Edwards.
Accolades
- NBA Champion, 2011 (Dallas)
- 2× NCAA Champion, Florida (2006, 2007)
- 2007 NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player
- No. 7 overall pick, 2007 draft
Lore
Fifty-one out of nowhere. On April 11, 2014, Brewer scored 51 points in a 112-110 win over Houston, on 19-of-30 shooting with six steals in 45 minutes. The man had never scored 30 in a game in seven NBA seasons. In one night he tied Kevin Love for the franchise single-game record and produced the single most improbable stat line any Wolf has ever authored. It remains the answer to a trivia question a lot of fans still can’t believe is real.
The leak-out. No Timberwolf ever ran the floor with more abandon. Paired with Rubio’s passing, Brewer turned defensive rebounds into instant offense, sprinting ahead of the play before the ball was even secured and finishing on the other end while the defense was still turning around. Half his transition buckets looked like a man who had left the huddle early. It was chaos, and on a rebuilding roster it was often the most watchable thing Minnesota did.
The pickpocket. For all the losing, Brewer quietly climbed the franchise ledger where it counts for his kind of player. His 502 steals rank fourth in Timberwolves history — a testament to a decade of gambling hands and a motor that never idled, spread across teams that mostly finished near the bottom of the standings.
The one that got away, then came back. Brewer is one of the rare Wolves to be drafted, developed, traded away, win a title elsewhere, and then choose to return. He was on the floor in Minnesota for the 15-win nadir of 2009-10 and again for the last playoff-caliber roster of the pre-Towns era, bracketing the darkest stretch the franchise has known.
The Wolves never got over the hump on his watch, but few players tried harder to drag them there.