monsterpile wrote:Camden0916 wrote:thedoper: "SJM mentioned this in the other post and I'm with him 100%. He is a unique player where 1 on 1 d is still his biggest strength. He is still contributing there. Like Jimmy Butler/Paul George/Kawaii Leonard the offense will be the last skill to come around. I suspect he is going to gain ground this year on offense more out of effiencey than volume. I still expect "checking out" this season because a well rounded offensive game is his weakness."
I disagree with this. Defense absolutely should be Wiggins' biggest strength, but I don't think it is. He's got the tools and some instincts, but based on what we've seen, I'd argue that his biggest strength is getting to the free throw line, which is what good scorers do. He's way ahead of the curve on this aspect of basketball. He averaged 5.7 free throw attempts per game last year as a rookie (good enough for 13th in the NBA among those that qualified), and here's how he improved monthly in that area over the season.
November: 3.8
December: 4.9
January: 4.8
February: 5.4
March: 7.2
April: 10.4
Just so everyone understands how good of a clip 5.7 is, our very own Kevin Martin is known for getting to line and his career average is 5.9 FTA per game. The best in the league is James Harden at 10.2, which is ridiculous, and Wiggins was able to produce 13 games where he had 10 attempts or more. That's impressive not just for a 19-year old kid.
That's the Andrew Wiggins that gets me excited. Aggressive, attacking the rim, making the defense stop him, using his freakish physical abilities, going right at guys, making the referees blow their whistles. I love that player.
I can't stand watching the "other" Andrew Wiggins. Lazy, mentally soft, too casual, prone to settling, jogging in transition, bailing the defense out by taking tough mid-range jumpers. That player drives me crazy.
That Wiggins that attacked last season often got feed the ball a lot in certain spots. I think he will learn to demand the ball more and also work within a team concept but as I have said a couple times in various threads I don't think the Wolves have worked much on offense so far so that might be hurting Wiggins some. He may be conflicted between playing a team game and getting the ball and doing something to score. This roster is kinda interesting because it has a lot of scoring potential but it's also a young mix of guys and a lot of the scorers probably tend more towards isolation type plays. I liked how ready Bazz was last night to get up that 3 pointer. This team needs more volume 3 point shooters if he can be more of that it would really open things up a lot.
There were three plays specifically designed for Wiggins, all of which involved some sort of isolation:
1. Post ups - no need to explain
2. Right elbow isolations - He would sometimes receive the ball in the high post at around the elbow and then face up his man.
3. Pick and roll as the screen setter - This was a play Flip used a ton. First he'd set a backscreen on the SG's man. This almost never resulted in the SG getting the ball cutting toward the hoop. Instead, the SG would clear out of that side of the floor and then Wiggins would set a screen on the PG's man, then receive the pass from the PG with some downhill momentum.
I haven't seen Mitchell use #3 yet in pre-season, but I have seen the first two.
But the key point is that Wiggins had plays designed specifically for him and Flip went to them more and more as guys went down and he increasingly relied on Wiggins. As we've harped on for over a year now, he needs to do more to free himself up for buckets when plays
aren't designed for him.
