Who is Luka Garza? Explore the 25YO Timberwolves Center who Impressed in Preseason Debut vs Lakers

Well, the Timberwolves’ first preseason game is in the books. Their opponents? The Los Angeles Lakers. As expected, the entire nation was focused on the highly anticipated debut of Bronny James. However, it was Wolves’ Center Luka Garza who stole the show with his impressive performance. Usually playing backup to Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid, Garza is not seen on the court too often.

Surely, many of you would be curious to know more about the Center who decimated the Lakers’ defense. So, let’s dive in.

From a family of athletes to becoming the National Player of the Year

While Garza was born in Washington and is an American national, he has a very diverse family background. That’s because his mother Sejla is from Bosnia and Herzegovina, while his father Frank hails from Spain. With both of his parents being former basketball stars who played professionally in Europe, it was clear that Luka was destined to follow in their footsteps and pursue a career in basketball. Not only his parents, but even Luka’s grandpa, James Halm, and uncle, Teoman Alibegovic, played basketball at a high level, even representing the Slovenian national team at one point.

With a family full of hoopers, Garza quickly found a passion for the game and went on to play for the Iowa Hawkeyes for four years in college. A great player from the get-go, Luka truly caught stride in his junior year when he averaged 23.9 points and nearly ten rebounds. Sure enough, he bagged several accolades, including National Player of the Year and first-team All-American. Continuing that momentum, he averaged 24.1 points as a senior and became a two-time National Player of the Year. As expected, the NBA came calling!

A late second-round pick dominated the Lakers in the preseason

Despite his amazing college resume, Garza was picked late in the second round in the 2021 draft. And it was the Pistons who gave him a chance at number 52. However, his game could not translate to the NBA that well and he averaged only 5.8 points as a rookie while playing less than half the games. And after only one season, he parted ways with the team that drafted him and joined the Timberwolves. Even with his new team, Luka has been a bench player and hardly gets any meaningful minutes. Well, that is expected because the team has no shortage of talented bigs.

But Garza has averaged 5.3 points so far in his two years with the Wolves and that was enough for him to re-sign with the team for two more years. As of now, he is on a $4.5 million deal. And he might have shown tonight that he is worth the new contract as he helped his team get a 124-107 victory against the Lakers. Coming off the bench, Luka went off for 20 points and nearly got a double-double with nine rebounds. With KAT gone, the big man could get more minutes going forward and hopefully, he will continue this form for the rest of this season.