Towns to wear Saunders' wedding ring around neck at draft lottery
Newly crowned Rookie of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns will represent the Minnesota Timberwolves at the NBA draft lottery on Tuesday at the New York Hilton in New York City.
The Timberwolves will have 88 ping-pong balls in the mix as a result of finishing the regular season with the fifth-worst record in the league at 29-53. Only the Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers, and Philadelphia 76ers will have more.
To increase the odds just a little bit more of Minnesota landing the No. 1 pick for a second year in a row, Ryan Saunders, the son of the late Flip Saunders, has given one of his father's wedding rings to Towns to wear as a good luck charm.
Ryan wears the ring around his neck every day, which is what Towns will do with the piece of jewelry on Tuesday.
Flip acted as the head coach and president of basketball operations of the Timberwolves before losing his battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma on Oct. 25, 2015.
To honor the memory of Saunders, Towns donated the Kia he won as part of his Rookie of the Year award to Minnesota's Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
- with h/t to Timberwolves PR