kekgeek1 wrote:We are going to learn a lot about Wiggins this year.
I have always been in the camp that he needs to do more but some of it is situational.
For example since coming into the league he has played top 10 in minutes in the NBA, asked to be our primary scoring option and also guard the best player on the other team. Last year he was also asked to initiate offense and run the break hard. He gets hit a lot as seen in his free throw attempts.
So is he strategically not attacking rebounds (he does crash hard in close end of the game situations) and not taking charges, slash getting on the floor or hustle plays because of this. He has also kept away from injuries and some of that could be because of the situations he dosen't put himself in.
Now with that said if his role is reduced will rebounds/hustle plays go up and will FG% go up because of it we are going to find out.
Just for example on how wiggins life might become easier and more productive, last year against Portland he had to guard CJ and be defended by aminu. This year it is going to be guarded by CJ and gets to defend aminu. What is easier all around. Against the rockets he will now get to guard Ariza and get defended by Harden, instead of the opposite last year
Yup. Just a really interesting situation. I just can't think of many players that went from a #1 option/#1 wing defender to a #2/3 option and #2 wing defender....and this happening right after signing a max deal!
I guess Chris Bosh and Kevin Love were sort of in similar situations in terms of their transition from Toronto to Miami and Minnesota to Cleveland. In both cases, they didn't become more efficient and didn't really do more of the "do shit" stuff. Perhaps their individual defense improved, but that's hard to tell.
kekgeek1 wrote:We are going to learn a lot about Wiggins this year.
I have always been in the camp that he needs to do more but some of it is situational.
For example since coming into the league he has played top 10 in minutes in the NBA, asked to be our primary scoring option and also guard the best player on the other team. Last year he was also asked to initiate offense and run the break hard. He gets hit a lot as seen in his free throw attempts.
So is he strategically not attacking rebounds (he does crash hard in close end of the game situations) and not taking charges, slash getting on the floor or hustle plays because of this. He has also kept away from injuries and some of that could be because of the situations he dosen't put himself in.
Now with that said if his role is reduced will rebounds/hustle plays go up and will FG% go up because of it we are going to find out.
Just for example on how wiggins life might become easier and more productive, last year against Portland he had to guard CJ and be defended by aminu. This year it is going to be guarded by CJ and gets to defend aminu. What is easier all around. Against the rockets he will now get to guard Ariza and get defended by Harden, instead of the opposite last year
Yup. Just a really interesting situation. I just can't think of many players that went from a #1 option/#1 wing defender to a #2/3 option and #2 wing defender....and this happening right after signing a max deal!
I guess Chris Bosh and Kevin Love were sort of in similar situations in terms of their transition from Toronto to Miami and Minnesota to Cleveland. In both cases, they didn't become more efficient and didn't really do more of the "do shit" stuff. Perhaps their individual defense improved, but that's hard to tell.
That Kyrie Irving guy dropped down quite a bit in the pecking order after signing his 5 year deal. :)
Irving is in the most similar situation to Wiggins, in that he was a high usage young player on a losing team until LeBron came to town (they had won 21, 24, and 33 games in Irving's first three LeBron-less years).
Irving was a more efficient scorer than Wiggins out of the gate, but his efficiency did take another nice leap up the first year he played with LeBron. It then took a hit the next season before posting another strong year this past season.
Paul Pierce is another guy that went from the no-brainer #1 option to more of a shared role when Ray Allen and KG joined the Celtics. He also became more efficient in that first year where he took a bit lesser role than he had previously.
So those are a couple of counter-examples to Love and Bosh.
So it's a mixed bag.....I don't think there is anything conclusive we can point to that suggests simply having better team mates leads to obvious improvements in scoring efficiency and "do shit" stats (in fact, I've seen zero evidence of the do shit stats moving much after being paired with better players).
