On Monday, Paige Bueckers and her teammates gathered around in the Hopkins High School gymnasium for what she thought was a photoshoot for a local television station.
While Bueckers was posing with a basketball, her teammates began screaming. Startled, she turned around to a huge surprise: Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns was there to present Bueckers with the 2020 Gatorade Girls Basketball National Player of the Year award, a trophy that Towns won for the boys in 2014.
"It's surreal that life has come full circle for me to be doing this when I received the award in the same fashion,” Towns told Sports Illustrated.