AbeVigodaLive wrote:Don't care about the motor discussion.
It's too subjective of a thing to get anywhere. But I agree with Q about comparing Wiggins to guys like Rudez. Why?
Wiggins is an all-world promising talent. Comparing him to crappy teammates on a 55-loss team seems to be defeatist thinking. I don't want Wiggins to be better than Shabazz Muhammad. I want him to be better than Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson or Carmelo Anthony.
Ummm...Wiggins compares pretty favorable to all those players and at a younger age than either Butler or Thompson. Here's second seasons for each player:
Great. Then let's continue to compare Wiggins to those guys instead of players who'll never be NBA starters...
To be fair Abe, Carlos did just compare wig to to Butler, melo and klay by posting those stats. Instead of adding it or commenting on it, you choose to be sarcastic. Okay.
I do agree that those 3 and maybe derozen should be the guys that we should incorporate when discussing Wiggins.
Huh? I wasn't being sarcastic. Earlier, there was a comparison to other Wolves players. I said we should compare Wiggins to other good players around the league instead. He did that. I said "great, let's continue to do that."
What the hell?
I'm not on a lot of forums. But online enough to know that people here are more genuine and earnest than any of the other ones. But for whatever reason, people here misinterpret what I'm writing way way way more often. Maybe because some of us are so earnest and passionate, we tend to take things more personally or simply see what we want to see?
I don't know. It's an interesting dynamic though for sure.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:Don't care about the motor discussion.
It's too subjective of a thing to get anywhere. But I agree with Q about comparing Wiggins to guys like Rudez. Why?
Wiggins is an all-world promising talent. Comparing him to crappy teammates on a 55-loss team seems to be defeatist thinking. I don't want Wiggins to be better than Shabazz Muhammad. I want him to be better than Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson or Carmelo Anthony.
Ummm...Wiggins compares pretty favorable to all those players and at a younger age than either Butler or Thompson. Here's second seasons for each player:
Great. Then let's continue to compare Wiggins to those guys instead of players who'll never be NBA starters...
I had previously shown stats of ALL our Wings in response to those who claim Wiggins doesn't do enough "other stuff" and that equates to "bad motor". I did that because there are people who feel Wiggins is targeted unfairly with that label. Looking at all our Wings actual production provides perspective to show why some feel that way. To dismiss that as me "comparing Wiggins to players who'll never be NBA starters" is obviously wrong since LaVine is our current starting SG and Prince/Kmart have started about 1,400 games between them in the NBA. But nice try.
Fair enough. If you think Prince/KMart are still viable NBA starters or were using their stats from previously in their careers. I thought it was a discussion about this season. And I think both players are over-the-hill and pretty substandard players that wouldn't be starting for any teams on the plus side of 25 wins.
In all honesty, there was no hidden agenda or malice in my pretty mundane posts. I've said the same thing about Ricky Rubio about 1,200 times. Instead of comparing our most critical players to their backups on crappy Wolves teams, we need to compare them to other core foundation guys around the league. Same thing here.
For what it's worth, I shared no opinion about Wiggins' motor.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:Don't care about the motor discussion.
It's too subjective of a thing to get anywhere. But I agree with Q about comparing Wiggins to guys like Rudez. Why?
Wiggins is an all-world promising talent. Comparing him to crappy teammates on a 55-loss team seems to be defeatist thinking. I don't want Wiggins to be better than Shabazz Muhammad. I want him to be better than Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson or Carmelo Anthony.
Ummm...Wiggins compares pretty favorable to all those players and at a younger age than either Butler or Thompson. Here's second seasons for each player:
Great. Then let's continue to compare Wiggins to those guys instead of players who'll never be NBA starters...
To be fair Abe, Carlos did just compare wig to to Butler, melo and klay by posting those stats. Instead of adding it or commenting on it, you choose to be sarcastic. Okay.
I do agree that those 3 and maybe derozen should be the guys that we should incorporate when discussing Wiggins.
Huh? I wasn't being sarcastic. Earlier, we had a comparison to other Wolves players. I said we should compare Wiggins to other good players around the league instead. He did that. I said "great, let's continue to do that."
What the hell?
I'm not on a lot of forums. But online enough to know that people here are more genuine and earnest than any of the other ones. But for whatever reason, people here misinterpret what I'm writing way way way more often. Maybe because some of us are so earnest and passionate, we tend to take things more personally or simply see what we want to see?
I don't know. It's an interesting dynamic though for sure.
I responded in a separate post as to why I listed ALL our wing players. Your interpretation of that post was off and seemed to done so with deliberate effect. Somehow showing other production of ALL our Wings became me comparing Wiggins to Rudez. I think it's pretty obvious why some would view that as a sarcastic or non-productive response. I know I did.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:Don't care about the motor discussion.
It's too subjective of a thing to get anywhere. But I agree with Q about comparing Wiggins to guys like Rudez. Why?
Wiggins is an all-world promising talent. Comparing him to crappy teammates on a 55-loss team seems to be defeatist thinking. I don't want Wiggins to be better than Shabazz Muhammad. I want him to be better than Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson or Carmelo Anthony.
Ummm...Wiggins compares pretty favorable to all those players and at a younger age than either Butler or Thompson. Here's second seasons for each player:
Great. Then let's continue to compare Wiggins to those guys instead of players who'll never be NBA starters...
To be fair Abe, Carlos did just compare wig to to Butler, melo and klay by posting those stats. Instead of adding it or commenting on it, you choose to be sarcastic. Okay.
I do agree that those 3 and maybe derozen should be the guys that we should incorporate when discussing Wiggins.
Huh? I wasn't being sarcastic. Earlier, we had a comparison to other Wolves players. I said we should compare Wiggins to other good players around the league instead. He did that. I said "great, let's continue to do that."
What the hell?
I'm not on a lot of forums. But online enough to know that people here are more genuine and earnest than any of the other ones. But for whatever reason, people here misinterpret what I'm writing way way way more often. Maybe because some of us are so earnest and passionate, we tend to take things more personally or simply see what we want to see?
I don't know. It's an interesting dynamic though for sure.
I responded in a separate post as to why I listed ALL our wing players. Your interpretation of that post was off and seemed to done so with deliberate effect. Somehow showing other production of ALL our Wings became me comparing Wiggins to Rudez. I think it's pretty obvious why some would view that as a sarcastic or non-productive response. I know I did.
We should probably stay far away from each other on here.
This seems to happen far too often. And I don't really know why. No offense, but it makes posting anything really unpleasant far too often.
I'm not being sarcastic or a dick or anything. I grabbed a name and wrote "guyS LIKE Rudez." I also used Muhammad. Meh. Part of this constant misinterpretation stuff with the same posters is amusing. Sorta, I guess. But it has a shelf life, too. It sucks out a lot of fun out of this place very quickly.
[Note: Apologies if my interpretation was off. My premise is really really really simple. Wiggins and Rubio and Towns are good players. They can be great to varying degrees. That's why I like to compare them to other good to great players instead of the lousy guys playing behind them... or with much lower ceilings on the Wolves roster. Simple as that. No snark. Cool?]
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
We should probably stay far away from each other on here.
This seems to happen far too often. And I don't really know why. No offense, but it makes posting anything really unpleasant far too often.
I'm not being sarcastic or a dick or anything. I grabbed a name. I also used Muhammad. Meh. Part of this constant misinterpretation stuff with the same posters is amusing. Sorta, I guess. But it has a shelf life, too. It sucks out a lot of fun out of this place very quickly.
It really just comes down to at least making an attempt to be respectful to others opinions. I'm certainly not always perfect in that regard. I don't think anyone on his is for that matter. But I think most on this board at least make an attempt. Deliberately twisting someone's comparison for sensational effect is not respectful IMO. You know very well I was not attempting to directly compare Wiggins to Rudez. I simply listed "other production" for ALL our wings in response to another poster questioning Wiggins motor. The data was shown to provide perspective. Some claim Wiggins is unfairly targeted on here for "motor" while others (like LaVine for instance who is also one of our wings and included in that list) fly under the radar even though they have worse stats across the board.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
We should probably stay far away from each other on here.
This seems to happen far too often. And I don't really know why. No offense, but it makes posting anything really unpleasant far too often.
I'm not being sarcastic or a dick or anything. I grabbed a name. I also used Muhammad. Meh. Part of this constant misinterpretation stuff with the same posters is amusing. Sorta, I guess. But it has a shelf life, too. It sucks out a lot of fun out of this place very quickly.
It really just comes down to at least making an attempt to be respectful to others opinions. I'm certainly not always perfect in that regard. I don't think anyone on his is for that matter. But I think most on this board at least make an attempt. Deliberately twisting someone's comparison for sensational effect is not respectful IMO. You know very well I was not attempting to directly compare Wiggins to Rudez. I simply listed "other production" for ALL our wings in response to another poster questioning Wiggins motor. The data was shown to provide perspective. Some claim Wiggins is unfairly targeted on here for "motor" while others (like LaVine for instance who is also one of our wings and included in that list) fly under the radar even though they have worse stats across the board.
No deliberate twisting. That's what you see. Not what was intended.
It is what it is. Yet again. I'm nearly positive this is not the first time this has happened between us. I'm nearly positive it's not the second time. Or even 3rd time.
One reason why many of us in this board are little down on Wiggins contribution is that if we exclude scoring he has shown very little improvement this year. Below are comparison of his non-scoring stats between rookie and sophmore years:
Based on stats it seems that Wiggins has shown only slight improved in passing and taking care of ball. Almost all other non-scoring stats have been regressed. Same is true also for Lavine tough. His turnover numbers have decreased dramatically but unfortunately that seems to be only non-scoring stat category where he has shown improvement.
It is actually pretty common that young players have a drop in other production when their scoring responsibilities increase but many of us (or at least I) were hoping that Wiggins would follow Durant, LeBron and Grant Hill, whom all improved in many categories during their second season even tough their usage rate also increased.
That doesn't mean that Wiggins wouldn't be a good player or couldn't be even an all star near future but it is quite probable that he won't ever be considered among top5 player in this league, since he is contributing mainly just in scoring.
Mikkeman wrote:One reason why many of us in this board are little down on Wiggins contribution is that if we exclude scoring he has shown very little improvement this year. Below are comparison of his non-scoring stats between rookie and sophmore years:
Based on stats it seems that Wiggins has shown only slight improved in passing and taking care of ball. Almost all other non-scoring stats have been regressed. Same is true also for Lavine tough. His turnover numbers have decreased dramatically but unfortunately that seems to be only non-scoring stat category where he has shown improvement.
It is actually pretty common that young players have a drop in other production when their scoring responsibilities increase but many of us (or at least I) were hoping that Wiggins would follow Durant, LeBron and Grant Hill, whom all improved in many categories during their second season even tough their usage rate also increased.
That doesn't mean that Wiggins wouldn't be a good player or couldn't be even an all star near future but it is quite probable that he won't ever be considered among top5 player in this league, since he is contributing mainly just in scoring.
I think it's fair for people to point out that they want more from Wiggins in those other categories. Nobody on a lotto team should be above constructive criticism. My point was "the motor" talk doesn't seem to be applied consistently to other players on this team. But even using your above table to show Wiggins year to year delta:
So, he's same or better in four out of those six metrics. Maybe that's not the across the board improvement everyone wants. But my issue comes when people put too much weight in one single metric i.e. Rebounds, while losing sight of the overall big picture. PER encompasses a lot of the across the board measurables. Last year Wiggins had a PER of 13.9. This year it's 16.5. That's a nice improvement. And when you compare that rating to the second year Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler - he's certainly not lagging. Especially considering he's so much younger than those guys were their second years. Bottom line, in the grand scheme of things...I personally put Wiggins towards the bottom of my worry list heading into next year.
The motor thing is hard to nail down with stats, but most of us know it when we see it. And there are outside observers that have also expressed frustration with Wiggins - this isn't just a few of us armchair pundits on this site.
Here is what I have observed with my eyes:
- I don't see Wiggins running hard all the time in transition (in both directions), although offensively I think he's gotten better now that Rubio (vs. LaVine last year) can get him the ball.
- I have never seen him take a charge - ever!
- When there is a scrum for a loose ball or 50/50 rebound, he almost never comes up with it. There was a game a week or two ago that I think I actually saw him get a crunch-time 50/50 ball and I sung his praises for it. But generally speaking, he doesn't win those balls.
- He gets fewer deflections (blocks and steals) and rebounds than someone with his size, position, and athleticism should. Will a lack of eye-popping stats in these areas mean he's not a good player? Of course not, but given his physical gifts, he just seems to underwhelm in these categories. A lot of folks talked about him being a Shawn Marion or Scottie Pippen sort of do-it-all athlete. Heck, he's not even Gerald Wallace in terms of using his athleticism to get deflections and rebounds.
I've said this a bunch of times before, but I see Wiggins becoming a rich man's DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan is not a jack-of-all trades wing either - he's mostly a scorer. I see Wiggins becoming a better version of that, which is obviously a really, really good player.
I think what's disappointing is given his length, athleticism, and pedigree, he could be even MORE than that if he had the motor of a Shabazz Muhammed, Corey Brewer, or Russell Westbrook. Imagine if he played the game as hard as those guys do? Now you are talking about perennial MVP-candidate type production.
