Wally Szczerbiak

For seven seasons Wally Szczerbiak was the shooter Kevin Garnett’s Timberwolves were built around, and the one teammate willing to tell Garnett the ball should sometimes go somewhere else.

Vitals
Born	March 5, 1977, Madrid, Spain
High school	Cold Spring Harbor (New York)
College	Miami (Ohio)
Drafted	No. 6 overall, 1999
Seasons as a Wolf	7 (1999–2006)
Number	10

The second star. The Minnesota Timberwolves spent the early Kevin Garnett years hunting for a second star to stand beside their franchise cornerstone. For a long stretch of the 2000s that player was Wally Szczerbiak, a smooth-shooting swingman who broke out as a 2002 All-Star, tied the franchise’s single-game scoring record, and became one of the most recognizable faces the club has ever employed. He was also a lightning rod, a marksman whose relationship with Garnett ran hot and cold and whose Minnesota tenure ended in a locker room that had run out of space for both of them.

The arrival. Minnesota took Szczerbiak with the No. 6 overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft, plucking him out of Miami University in Ohio, where he had starred and would later have his No. 32 retired. Born in Madrid, Spain, to a father who had played professional basketball overseas, he arrived in the Twin Cities as a polished scorer rather than a project. The pick drew skepticism at the time, but Szczerbiak answered it quickly. He made the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2000, averaged 11.6 points as a rookie, and won MVP honors at the 2001 Rookie Challenge during All-Star weekend. Garnett finally had a scorer who could take some of the weight off his shoulders.

The rise. The 2001-02 season was his masterpiece. Szczerbiak averaged 18.7 points on 50.7 percent shooting and 45.5 percent from three, earning the only All-Star selection of his career as a coaches’ pick for the Western Conference. He rewarded the franchise’s faith by re-signing rather than testing the open market; in the fall of 2002 he agreed to a six-year extension reported at around $63 million, saying he wanted to stay in Minnesota and keep playing alongside Garnett. On April 13, 2003, he poured in 44 points against the Chicago Bulls to tie what was then the Timberwolves’ single-game scoring record, matching the franchise mark Tony Campbell had set back in 1990. In 2001-02 and 2002-03 he was exactly what Minnesota had drafted him to be: a knockdown shooter and a reliable 17-to-19-point scorer who kept the floor spread for the best power forward in the game.

The friction with Garnett. The partnership was never entirely comfortable. In November 2000, the two came to blows in the team’s training room about an hour after practice. Szczerbiak had asked for help calling out a screen; Garnett told him to play defense instead, and staff and a teammate had to pull Garnett away. Both men insisted afterward that they had cleared the air, and by most accounts they coexisted for years; Garnett even invited Szczerbiak to the U.S. Open down the road. But the underlying dynamic never fully dissolved. This was Garnett’s team and Garnett’s voice, and Szczerbiak’s willingness to speak up about wanting the ball made him, in the eyes of teammates, the one player most likely to test that pecking order.

The decline and the exit. Injuries interrupted the prime years. A left-foot injury limited Szczerbiak to just 28 games in 2003-04, which meant he watched from the margins as Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell powered the 58-win 2003-04 club to the Western Conference Finals, the deepest run in franchise history to that point. He returned to health for 15.5 points a night in 2004-05 and was scoring a career-best 20.1 per game across 40 appearances in 2005-06. Then the tension with Garnett came to a head. By Rashad McCants’ account, Szczerbiak challenged Garnett in the locker room after Garnett missed a game-winner against Philadelphia on January 22, 2006, questioning why he would not trust his teammates. Garnett erupted so fiercely that players had to restrain him. On January 26, 2006, Szczerbiak was traded to the Boston Celtics alongside Michael Olowokandi, Dwayne Jones and a conditional first-round pick, the return headlined by Ricky Davis and Mark Blount. Seven seasons in Minnesota were over.

By the numbers

Regular-season stats with the Wolves, per Basketball-Reference:

Season	GP	PPG	RPG	APG	FG%	3P%
1999-00	73	11.6	3.7	2.8	.511	.359
2000-01	82	14.0	5.5	3.2	.510	.338
2001-02	82	18.7	4.8	3.1	.507	.455
2002-03	52	17.6	4.6	2.6	.481	.421
2003-04	28	10.2	3.1	1.2	.449	.435
2004-05	81	15.5	3.7	2.4	.506	.373
2005-06	40	20.1	4.8	2.8	.495	.406

Wolves career totals

Franchise ranks

• 6th Field goals made (2,634)
• 7th Points (6,777)
• 7th Minutes played (14,715)
• 9th Free throws made (1,166)
• 10th Games (438)

Per the all-time franchise leaderboard.

Accolades

• 2002 NBA All-Star (his only selection)
• NBA All-Rookie First Team, 2000
• 2001 Rookie Challenge MVP
• Tied the then-franchise single-game scoring record with 44 points, April 13, 2003
• No. 32 retired by Miami (Ohio)

Lore

Wally World. Szczerbiak was a genuine heartthrob, and the franchise knew exactly what it had. Marketed under the nickname “Wally World,” the square-jawed swingman drew a devoted following among women in the fan base and became a dependable box-office draw in a market that did not always have easy stars to sell. His combination of clean-cut good looks and a picture-perfect jump shot made him one of the most marketable players the team has ever rostered, the sort of Wolf whose jersey moved off the shelves as much for the face on it as the game behind it.

One of the great shooters. Underneath the marketing was a legitimately elite marksman. Szczerbiak closed his Timberwolves run drilling 40.6 percent from three in 2005-06 and finished his NBA career at .406 from deep, numbers that look even better in retrospect, given the three-point era that arrived a decade later. On Wolves teams built around Garnett’s interior dominance and defense, Szczerbiak’s shooting was the spacing that kept opponents from collapsing the paint.

What he left behind. The Minnesota totals still hold up. Across 438 games he scored 6,777 points and remains one of the highest-scoring wings the franchise has ever developed, a distinction earned mostly on nights when Garnett was the gravity and Szczerbiak was the release valve. His 44-point outburst in April 2003 still ranks among the great single-game scoring nights in team history. He went on to a long second act in Boston, Seattle and Cleveland before retiring and settling into a television role as an analyst for the New York Knicks. But the Wolves chapter is the one that fixed his legend: the good-looking sharpshooter who gave Garnett his first real scoring partner, broke through as an All-Star, and in the end could not share a locker room with the man the whole operation revolved around.

In a franchise history stocked with talents who left on sour terms, Wally World was one of the first to write that script.