When the Minnesota Timberwolves officially introduced first-round draft pick Shabazz Muhammad on Friday, the UCLA product spoke about entering the NBA with "a chip on his shoulder" after a pre-draft process that didn't go exactly has he'd planned, from the March revelation that he's a year older than everyone thought to his father's late May indictment on federal fraud charges , from his exclusion of the pool of prospects invited to the green room at the 2013 NBA draft to his drop to the Utah Jazz with the final pick in the lottery, who flipped him to the Wolves with ex-Louisville big man Gorgui Deng in exchange for former Michigan point guard Trey Burke. Questions about both Muhammad's off-court issues and an on-court game that seems heavy on scoring instinct but light on a lot of other things will persist, but to his credit, Muhammad appears eager to go about the business of answering them ("I love changing people's opinions") and making a fresh start at the professional level, beginning a new chapter with a new team and a new jersey number ... although he didn't necessarily want that, according to Nate Sandell of 1500ESPN.com in the Twin Cities : Muhammad originally requested jersey No. 15 with the Wolves, but when he found out Mickael Gelabale already owned the number, he opted for a more obscure option. "Nobody wears zero in the league, so I might as well wear zero," he explained. Sure, OK. It's like that old Belle and Sebastian lyric: "Nobody writes 'em like they used to, so it may as well be me." I can get on board with that, Shabazz. There's just one problem, though: When it comes to wearing No. 0, they do write 'em like they used to. Fifteen NBA players wore the single cipher last season. To wit:
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