Chris Finch is where he always seemed destined to be, coaching an NBA team. And if his route was somewhat circuitous – he went from Division III player to European player to European coach to G-League coach to NBA assistant before becoming a head man – consider how different things might have been.

We know him as a one-time star at Wilson High and Franklin & Marshall, and now as the coach of a Minnesota Timberwolves team that this season reached the Western Conference Finals (and as a guy who on Monday was rewarded with a contract extension that will keep him around through the 2027-28 season).

Interesting journey, though it might have veered in an entirely different direction. As a younger man he might have been a Princeton Tiger. In fact, he very much wanted to be one. Or he might have been an American University Eagle.

Both facts were noted in the new book “Pipeline to the Pros,” by Ben Kaplan and Danny Parkins, and Finch confirmed as much in a phone conversation last week, saying that Princeton was his “first choice” coming out of high school.

“Who wouldn’t want to go to Princeton?” he asked.

Indeed. Great school, great hoops. The Tigers were then coached by the late, legendary Pete Carril, who like Finch had a Berks County connection, having once served as the head man at Reading High. So of course Finch wanted to play there. Of course that would be his strong preference.

It’s unclear why he didn’t wind up there. He remembers (incorrectly, as it turns out) that the same year he was being recruited, a talented big man named Kit Mueller fell into Princeton’s lap. That’s because Mueller, who had also been targeted by several major-college powers, saw his scholarship offers evaporate when he suffered a severe leg injury after he “stepped through” a fish tank, as he once wrote. (Others have reported it was a tank holding his pet piranhas, something Kaplan and Parkins also note.)

Princeton doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, but Carril only had so many academic exceptions per year – i.e., waivers for players who might not necessarily be poor students, but might not exactly be Princeton-level scholars, either.

As Finch said, “I was a very good student with good grades and stuff, but there were a few things on my academic resume that Princeton would have looked the other way. And (Carril) got one of those waivers per recruiting class, and he used it on Kit.”

Again, that simply wasn’t the case. (Memories are funny like that.) Mueller, who went on to become a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year, came out of high school in 1987, one year earlier than Finch. But whatever the circumstances, Carril informed Finch that he wasn’t going to bring him in after all.

“He actually called my dad,” Finch said. “He called my dad before he called me. He just said, ‘I’ve got some bad news.’”

So back to the drawing board. Finch liked such D1 schools as William & Mary and Rice, but both fired their coaches as he was mulling his choice. Drexel assistant Pat Flannery, who would later win a D3 national championship at Lebanon Valley and enjoy great success at Bucknell, recruited him. Colgate, Bucknell, Lafayette, were also on him.

And then there was F&M, one of only four D3s who wooed him. It was a school he could attend at a deep discount because of the tuition exchange program with Albright, where his dad was the director of development. But Chris said at the time that his decision was not based on financial considerations, and he said the same recently.

“I wanted to go where I could win, and I could play right away,” he said.

He did both, seeing extended action for a 27-3 team his freshman year. Still, he harbored D1 dreams – he said it was his “personal goal” to play at that level – which is why he considered moving on to American after that season. That he didn’t, he said, was “because I had found a friend group – a non-basketball friend group – that I’d become close to.”

There was also this: “It’s not in my nature to quit or change. It’s my nature to see things through, so I figured I found a good thing at the end of my freshman year. Basketball was great. Coach (Glenn Robinson) was awesome. Being able to play with good players. Won a lot of games.”

One more thing.

“I didn’t feel like I was settling at F&M,” Finch said. “I was super excited to go there, for all the reasons that I chose it. But I always say the best decision I ever made was not going to F&M; it was staying at F&M.”

He would become a two-time D3 All-American, and one of the finest all-around players in school history. He also led the Dips to the national championship game his junior year (1990-91), where they lost to a Wisconsin-Platteville team coached by future Wisconsin head man Bo Ryan. It is one of the losses that gnaws at Finch still.

College was followed by the three-decade odyssey that has seen him land in Minnesota. No regrets, he said. But feel free to wonder how things might have unfolded, had one decision or another gone differently. Would he be where he is, doing what he loves? There is ample reason to believe he might be, as he is a bright, driven guy. But life’s funny. You truly never know.