The NBA returns to Des Moines later subsequent month when the Minnesota Timberwolves And The Philadelphia 76ers play a preseason recreation at Wells Fargo Enviornment on Oct. 11.
Curiosity within the recreation has been so excessive that it might not be the final time a preseason recreation is held in central Iowa.
Timberwolves COO Ryan Tanke mentioned this 12 months’s recreation is approaching 10,000 tickets offered, which bodes properly for future preseason video games in Des Moines.
“I believe it’s essential,” Tanke mentioned. “It’s not one thing we might do yearly and rotate between worldwide video games and different calls for. Nevertheless it’s one thing we actually need to make a reasonably common behavior of doing inside this market.”
Coming to Iowa has all the time been a part of the plan because the Timberwolves bought the Iowa Vitality and renamed it the Iowa Wolves to turn out to be Minnesota’s NBA G League affiliate. Tanke mentioned the purpose was to decide to the area they have been right here to remain.
The NBA preseason video games helped.
The Timberwolves return to Iowa after taking part in a preseason recreation towards the Milwaukee Bucks at Hilton Coliseum in 2018. That recreation will probably be performed at Wells Fargo Enviornment, dwelling of the Iowa Wolves.
“Wells Fargo Enviornment needs to be packed,” Tanke mentioned. “It’s an opportunity to see guys like Naz Reid and others which have come via our Iowa Wolves program and an opportunity to possibly see another guys which may play just a little bit there this season as properly.”
It is going to even be a homecoming for Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse, a Carroll native who coached the Vitality and guided the crew to its solely title in 2011. That, mixed with the Timberwolves’ latest run of success, has made a ticket to the October recreation a scorching commodity.
“We’re positively heading towards a big, if not full, crowd,” Tanke mentioned.
Tanke mentioned it was additional proof that skilled basketball is flourishing in Iowa. The Iowa Wolves are coming off a season during which they set a franchise report for attendance with greater than 103,000 followers in whole coming to video games final season.
“Iowa clearly has an enormous basketball fan base throughout the state, each on the lads’s and ladies’s aspect. And so this preseason recreation is a chance for us to succeed in out to the followers and have fun the rising curiosity all through Iowa and in NBA basketball,” Tanke mentioned.
