Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:He exceeded my expectations as a scorer and a guy that could get to the line at an elite level, especially in the last third of the year.

The one area I was disappointed by was his rebounding. He was routinely man-handled by other wings when competing for rebounds.

Everything else sort of met my expectations.

I agree that he was pretty poor at rebounding for most of the season. However, at the end of the season I was really encouraged about his put back jams and tip outs. If he can ever learn to grab onto it and pull it down without its slipping out and shows the same intensity as he did at the end of the season he will be ok

Volans19 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:He exceeded my expectations as a scorer and a guy that could get to the line at an elite level, especially in the last third of the year.

The one area I was disappointed by was his rebounding. He was routinely man-handled by other wings when competing for rebounds.

Everything else sort of met my expectations.

I agree that he was pretty poor at rebounding for most of the season. However, at the end of the season I was really encouraged about his put back jams and tip outs. If he can ever learn to grab onto it and pull it down without its slipping out and shows the same intensity as he did at the end of the season he will be ok

Yeah, I do agree that he seemed to have better hands at the end of the year. I saw far fewer balls squirt away from him. Still....With that length and athleticism, 4.6 boards a game from the SF position is pretty anemic.

Q12543 wrote:He exceeded my expectations as a scorer and a guy that could get to the line at an elite level, especially in the last third of the year.

The one area I was disappointed by was his rebounding. He was routinely man-handled by other wings when competing for rebounds.

Everything else sort of met my expectations.

Yep. his rebounding seems to be an area he could really improved on. I think it goes down to strength and savvy. He usually gets good position and has his fingertips on the ball but gets overpowered/boxed out/pushed out of the rebound.

Another small factor that might contribute to it is wiggins generally guard the best perimeter guy of the other team. He even guard point guards as he usually defend chris paul when we played the clips. He stays with his man on d so he that put him out of position at times. Not using that as an excuse as he could certainly pull down more than 4.5 boards a game as he seems to lose rebounds a couple of times a game. He did improved on this area towards the end of the season though and by adding strength and bulk, Im confident he will be fine and an improved rebounder the rest of his career.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/andrew-wiggins-and-the-problem-with-scorers/

Interesting... or bloody terrible (how dare they!) article about advanced stats and Andrew Wiggins.

I don't think his season was nearly as bleak (no way did 60 other rookies provide more value to their teams this season, throw whatever metric they used for that away... it's ridiculous). But I don't think it was a slam-dunk awesome season either. It was a season of promise amid turmoil and ineptitude. So I think the truth is probably somewhere in-between super duper awful and oh my gawd awe-inspiring.

The only thing that truly matters, however, is where does he go from here? Wiggins certainly LOOKS like he has all-star potential. And he did grow in certain areas throughout the season. Those count for something in this day and age of formulas, metrics, sundial readings, abacus countings and other math stuff, right?

Please overlook the blurbs about LaVine... some heads will explode at that point. My question is... do these stats have ANY merit at all?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/andrew-wiggins-and-the-problem-with-scorers/

Interesting... or bloody terrible (how dare they!) article about advanced stats and Andrew Wiggins.

I don't think his season was nearly as bleak (no way did 60 other rookies provide more value to their teams this season, throw whatever metric they used for that away... it's ridiculous). But I don't think it was a slam-dunk awesome season either. It was a season of promise amid turmoil and ineptitude. So I think the truth is probably somewhere in-between super duper awful and oh my gawd awe-inspiring.

The only thing that truly matters, however, is where does he go from here? Wiggins certainly LOOKS like he has all-star potential. And he did grow in certain areas throughout the season. Those count for something in this day and age of formulas, metrics, sundial readings, abacus countings and other math stuff, right?

Please overlook the blurbs about LaVine... some heads will explode at that point. My question is... do these stats have ANY merit at all?

I think it was a slam dunk awesome season.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/andrew-wiggins-and-the-problem-with-scorers/

Interesting... or bloody terrible (how dare they!) article about advanced stats and Andrew Wiggins.

I don't think his season was nearly as bleak (no way did 60 other rookies provide more value to their teams this season, throw whatever metric they used for that away... it's ridiculous). But I don't think it was a slam-dunk awesome season either. It was a season of promise amid turmoil and ineptitude. So I think the truth is probably somewhere in-between super duper awful and oh my gawd awe-inspiring.

The only thing that truly matters, however, is where does he go from here? Wiggins certainly LOOKS like he has all-star potential. And he did grow in certain areas throughout the season. Those count for something in this day and age of formulas, metrics, sundial readings, abacus countings and other math stuff, right?

Please overlook the blurbs about LaVine... some heads will explode at that point. My question is... do these stats have ANY merit at all?

Damn, I saw this article 4 hours ago and was going to post it, but I was at work at our computer system wouldn't let me log into this site. You beat me to it!

I think it's an interesting, and fair article, and the Wolves record certainly back up the advanced stats of these heavy minute players being poor.

The take away I have for Wiggins is that he did NOT raise the level of the team this year as a whole, but that his skill set certainly makes it apparent that as he grows into his body and learns the NBA game better he'll have an upward trajectory. Their list of age-adjusted stats show him right behind Durant's rookie year. Additionally, like the article mentions, his heavy usage/reliance help lead to his lower efficiency.

LaVine was terrible to start the season, and was still terrible halfway through the season. At the end of the season he wasn't a net positive yet, but he was starting to learn the game and get more comfortable. He's young, has a thin frame, and is still learning how to fit in an NBA game, but not so worried about him.

Payne and Anthony Bennett....Not surprising on them, and I wish I could say I had optimism there.

Interesting article, but perhaps a bit over-wrought. I'm not normally a big fan of PER, but given the sheer amount of minutes he played and the tumultuous roster situation, it's tough to rely on more efficiency-based and team-based metrics.

Here is his PER versus other top rookies with just one year of college:
Wiggins - 13.9

He's behind these guys:
'Melo - 17.6
Durant - 15.8
LeBron - 18.3
Beasley - 17.2 (could never really move the needle after that)

He's about the same or ahead of these guys:
J.R. Smith - 10.9
Gay - 12.4
Gerald Wallace - 13.3
Beal - 13.6
Deng - 14.2

January to April their rookie seasons:

Durant: 20.7 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 2.6 APG, 44-25-88 %'s.
Wiggins: 19.1 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 2.5 APG, 45-27-79 %'s.

Take it for what it's worth, but I almost feel like we saw two different Andrew Wiggins this year. 2014 version and 2015 version all in the same season.

Camden wrote:January to April their rookie seasons:

Durant: 20.7 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 2.6 APG, 44-25-88 %'s.
Wiggins: 19.1 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 2.5 APG, 45-27-79 %'s.

Take it for what it's worth, but I almost feel like we saw two different Andrew Wiggins this year. 2014 version and 2015 version all in the same season.

Yeah, he had a rough first 25 games or so. If he can improve his outside shooting, he will be a very dangerous scorer.

Q12543 wrote:Interesting article, but perhaps a bit over-wrought. I'm not normally a big fan of PER, but given the sheer amount of minutes he played and the tumultuous roster situation, it's tough to rely on more efficiency-based and team-based metrics.

Yep. And I interpreted that as the central point of the whole article. It wasn't saying that Wiggins had a bad season. It was raising the question why his Advanced Stats didn't match what we all saw. A key sentence from the article:

"a player's efficiency numbers aren't even close to being all his own -- and that, crucially, high scorers such as Wiggins represent the group most centrally affected by such interplay between teammates."

Wiggins was asked to carry the load on a crappy team. Pek, Rubio and Martin went down and he was forced into being "the guy" early. That hurt is advanced stats, but helped his basic stats. Take the same guy. Put him on a good team. His usage rate goes down. His basic stats go down. But I'm sure his efficiency and advanced stats would go up. It's the same guy/same ability - but his stats would look very different.