Two-time All-American Robbie Hummel has had a career that should be narrated by Jim Nantz. He’s quite an interesting story, and now it’s an inspirational/feel good story. He made the Minnesota Timberwolves roster, quite an achievement given all that he’s overcome to get there. Granted the T’Wolves are anything but contenders in the NBA Western Conference, but still, Robbie Hummel is in the league.
Hummel, and fellow Purdue Boilermakers E’Twaun Moore and Carl Landry are all on NBA rosters to start the season. Former Boiler JaJuan Johnson is out of the league.
After spending the 2012-13 season in Spain, Robbie Hummel was one of four players vying for the final spot on the Timberwolves roster. Once Chris Johnson was cut on October 18th, all signs pointed to Robbie Hummel becoming the 12th man.
He returned from Spain to play on Minnesota’s summer league team for the second time, then received an invitation to training camp. He earned a start and played a team-best 31 minutes in the Wolves’ second-to-last preseason game against the 76ers last Wednesday night. Robbie Hummel beat out Othyus Jeffers, A.J. Price and Lorenzo Brown to get the last man on the bench spot.
But again just getting here is a huge victory considering all that he’s had to overcome.
Hummel, who tore the ACL in his right knee twice while at Purdue, was a 2010 and 2012 All-American and is one of four players in school history to score 1,000 points, grab 500 rebounds and dish out 250 assists at Purdue. He ranks ninth on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,772 points and added 862 rebounds to rank tied for fourth on the rebounds chart.
The Timberwolves selected Robbie Hummel in the second round with the No. 58 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.
Entering this season, 32 former Boilermakers have played games in the NBA.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a regular analyst on news talk radio stations across the world; with weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS