MINNEAPOLIS — Two years ago, Randy Foye carried water blessed at Lourdes with him to represent the Timberwolves at the NBA’s annual game of chance, the draft lottery. Last year, Fred Hoiberg brought a fan’s lucky bear.

Twenty seasons on, the Wolves never have done better than they deserved in the blind draw that determines the draft’s top three picks.
So that’s why rookie Kevin Love figures this time he’ll take a nail clipper with him into the room where his franchise’s fate once again is decided.
“All the Timberwolves media people told me to bring a lucky charm, but that didn’t work for Hoiberg last year,” Love said, referring to a lottery when the Wolves were slotted for the third pick and ended up with exactly that. “So I have to try to figure something out.”
Why the nail clipper? Well, there’s a story behind that.
Love has been in Los Angeles since the season ended, resting and now starting to get ready for next season. He’s been shooting 500 to 600 jump shots a day, doing yoga and strength training. He also is working with a physical therapist and, at the suggestion of the people he’s staying with, has gone to a Beverly Hills salon for a ... manicure?
“They said I should go get one and I said, ’Manicure? Isn’t that for chicks? Girls?” he said. “They said no.”
So Love went and as he left the salon, the paparazzi that hang out in Beverly Hills looking for stars caught his departure. Footage ended up on TNT’s playoff broadcasts.
“I had five or six cameras following me around,” he said.
So now he’s apparently a well-groomed rookie with a franchise that has a 38.5 percent chance of getting the sixth pick, a 26.2 percent chance of getting the fifth pick and a combined 25.5 percent chance at one of the top three picks, including a 7.6 percent chance at getting the No. 1 overall pick.
The Wolves never have drafted higher than third, and they did that twice (Christian Laettner in 1992 and O.J. Mayo last year).
Even if his nail clipper isn’t, does Love consider himself lucky?
“I would think so,” he said. “I feel like I ended up in the right situation this year. I was born Sept. 7 at 7:07. My whole life, I’ve considered myself pretty lucky.”