Doug West
An original Timberwolf and Minnesota's first homegrown star: Doug West rose from the 38th pick to the franchise scoring record before Kevin Garnett arrived.
Before the Timberwolves had a star to trade away, they had one they drafted, developed, and watched grow up in front of the whole state.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 27, 1967, Altoona, Pennsylvania |
| High school | Altoona Area High School (Pennsylvania) |
| College | Villanova (four seasons, 1985–89) |
| Drafted | No. 38 overall (2nd round), 1989 |
| Seasons as a Wolf | 9 (1989–1998) |
| Number | 5 |
The original. Doug West arrived with the building itself. Minnesota drafted him 38th overall in 1989 — the franchise’s first-ever draft, held before the Timberwolves had played a single game — and for two seasons he was exactly what a late second-round pick on an expansion roster is supposed to be: a deep reserve who played hard and scored a little, 2.6 points a night as a rookie and 3.9 the year after. Nobody circled him as a building block. He simply refused to leave, and eventually the roster around him thinned out until the job was there for the taking.
The breakout. West took it. Handed the starting shooting-guard spot in 1991-92, he averaged 14.0 points on a remarkable .518 from the floor — an efficiency mark most perimeter players never sniff — while drawing the toughest wing assignment on the other end. In a decade defined by losing, West became the rare Wolf a fan could point to without flinching: a two-way starter who had earned every minute the slow way, and who shot a better percentage than most of the centers he shared a floor with.
The peak. The 1992-93 season was his masterpiece. West led the team in scoring at 19.3 points per game, poured in a career-high 39 against Golden State on December 19, 1992, and did it as the steadiest hand on a young, chaotic roster. By 1995 he had passed Tony Campbell to become the Timberwolves’ all-time leading scorer — the first player to hold that distinction who had spent his entire career in Minnesota. In a franchise with no banners and no history to speak of yet, West briefly owned the most important number on the wall.
The long goodbye. The good times were quietly borrowed. The 1993 arrival of Isaiah Rider pushed West to small forward and shaved his scoring, and the 1995-96 debut of a teenager named Kevin Garnett rearranged the entire depth chart — West slid to the bench and averaged just 6.4 points. When Rider was dealt, West returned to the starting five for 1996-97 and played a steadying veteran role on the team that finally broke through to the franchise’s first-ever playoff berth. By then he was the last original Timberwolf standing. Late in the 1997-98 season, Minnesota traded him to the Vancouver Grizzlies for Anthony Peeler, closing a nine-year run that had spanned the entire ugly-duckling era of the franchise.
By the numbers
Regular-season stats, per Basketball-Reference:
| Season | GP | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989-90 | 52 | 2.6 | 1.3 | 0.3 | .393 | .273 |
| 1990-91 | 75 | 3.9 | 1.8 | 0.6 | .480 | .000 |
| 1991-92 | 80 | 14.0 | 3.2 | 3.5 | .518 | .174 |
| 1992-93 | 80 | 19.3 | 3.1 | 2.9 | .517 | .087 |
| 1993-94 | 72 | 14.7 | 3.2 | 2.4 | .487 | .125 |
| 1994-95 | 71 | 12.9 | 3.2 | 2.6 | .461 | .180 |
| 1995-96 | 73 | 6.4 | 2.2 | 1.6 | .445 | .077 |
| 1996-97 | 68 | 7.8 | 2.2 | 1.7 | .467 | .333 |
| 1997-98 | 38 | 4.1 | 2.2 | 1.2 | .374 | .000 |
Wolves career totals
609Games 6,216Points 1,559Rebounds 1,216Assists 428Steals 15,603Minutes
Franchise ranks- 3rd Games played (609)
- 5th Minutes played (15,603)
- 8th Points (6,216)
Per the all-time franchise leaderboard.
Accolades- Timberwolves’ all-time leading scorer (from 1995 until Kevin Garnett)
- Third in franchise history in games played; top five in minutes
- Original Timberwolf — the franchise’s first draft class, No. 38 overall in 1989
Lore
The last one left. West was there for the very first Timberwolves draft and stuck around long enough to be the only member of the original roster still on it by the mid-1990s. A franchise built and rebuilt itself around him three or four times; he outlasted every version until Garnett’s Minnesota made the old expansion Wolves feel like a different sport.
39 in December. His signature night came against Golden State on December 19, 1992 — 39 points, a career high that still reads like the ceiling of a player who spent two years buried at the end of the bench. For one evening the second-round flier from Altoona looked like the best guard in the building.
The record before the record. Passing Tony Campbell in 1995 made West the Timberwolves’ all-time leading scorer, and his 6,000-plus points stood as the franchise mark until Garnett came along and turned it into a footnote. It is easy to forget now, but for a stretch in the mid-’90s the name at the top of the Wolves’ scoring list belonged to a homegrown lifer.
No. 5, the first time. West wore No. 5 through his Minnesota years — the same number the franchise later handed to Anthony Edwards. Two very different careers, three decades apart, share a jersey: the patient grinder who kept the lights on during the lean years, and the face of the era that finally made them worth watching.
The Wolves have employed flashier players and better ones, but few who meant more to the survival of the thing. Doug West was the franchise’s proof that it could grow its own.