These two things are simultaneously true

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

This is a great thread. Q, I think your points are probably true - but it feels a little bit like you're insulting my girlfriend and my instinct is to stand up for her. Funny how emotionally attached and biased we become.

I think we'd all agree that point one is far more important than point 2 though. Point one implies a projection of what he is likely to be for us over the course of his career whereas point 2 is very deliberately stated as a fact with limited context.

Ha, indeed! I figured this would stir up some good debate.

I think what prompted my thread was the Kevin Love-Wiggins trade thread, where Bleed mentioned how much better Wiggins vs. Shumpert would have been last season for Cleveland. That's when it occurred to me that many of us are projecting what kind of player we think Wiggins will become onto what he was as a rookie. They are two different things. He was not that great last season on an absolute basis (yes, he was very good for a rookie). And I would submit, he wasn't even an average NBA wing last season (although others present very reasonable arguments and points to counter that statement).

[bleedspeed]

Q - I still think Wiggins would have looked like a better player playing with the best player on the planet and not being asked to be everything. Even as a rookie. Not sure which would have been better for him longterm though.

[TheFuture]

Q - I still think Wiggins would have looked like a better player playing with the best player on the planet and not being asked to be everything. Even as a rookie. Not sure which would have been better for him longterm though.

What I don't understand is why its so difficult to understand this at its basis.

Wiggins would be a perfect 3rd option on offense, and co old focus most of his energy on the defensive end. He was thrust into the #1 role here last year as a 19 year old rookie playing with shit for teammates. You don't think kyrie and LeBron make life easy for him? I'm sure his efficiency would skyrocket. Shumpert is 3 and D. He doesn't post up, he doesn't dunk on whoever he wants, he doesn't create if there is nothing else there.

[TheFuture]

Q, I'm also curious to see a list of "average players" that you believe were above Wiggins last year. Would help me understand why you'd say he was a below average player.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Q - I still think Wiggins would have looked like a better player playing with the best player on the planet and not being asked to be everything. Even as a rookie. Not sure which would have been better for him longterm though.

What I don't understand is why its so difficult to understand this at its basis.

Wiggins would be a perfect 3rd option on offense, and co old focus most of his energy on the defensive end. He was thrust into the #1 role here last year as a 19 year old rookie playing with shit for teammates. You don't think kyrie and LeBron make life easy for him? I'm sure his efficiency would skyrocket. Shumpert is 3 and D. He doesn't post up, he doesn't dunk on whoever he wants, he doesn't create if there is nothing else there.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that.

In an Irving/James led offense, spot-up shooting opportunities are in abundance. But was that Wiggins' strength? Was 3 point shooting? Was garbage hoops? Was moving without the ball?

I don't see Wiggins helping with spacing on that team. And he was a rookie who was just beginning to learn the nuances of how to play last season. Cleveland was in championship mode... not teaching the promising rookie how to play NBA basketball mode.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q - I still think Wiggins would have looked like a better player playing with the best player on the planet and not being asked to be everything. Even as a rookie. Not sure which would have been better for him longterm though.

I disagree. In fact, in the few times we had a full squad last season, Wiggins struggled to make much of an impact as a complementary piece of the puzzle. He is neither a great outside shooter, great cutter, elite defender (yet), or good rebounder. You need a complementary SF on an elite team to do some combination of these things in order to be fully effective. I'm not convinced Wiggins was prepared to fulfill that role last year with the Cavs.

[Monster]

Q - I still think Wiggins would have looked like a better player playing with the best player on the planet and not being asked to be everything. Even as a rookie. Not sure which would have been better for him longterm though.

What I don't understand is why its so difficult to understand this at its basis.

Wiggins would be a perfect 3rd option on offense, and co old focus most of his energy on the defensive end. He was thrust into the #1 role here last year as a 19 year old rookie playing with shit for teammates. You don't think kyrie and LeBron make life easy for him? I'm sure his efficiency would skyrocket. Shumpert is 3 and D. He doesn't post up, he doesn't dunk on whoever he wants, he doesn't create if there is nothing else there.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that.

In an Irving/James led offense, spot-up shooting opportunities are in abundance. But was that Wiggins' strength? Was 3 point shooting? Was garbage hoops? Was moving without the ball?

I don't see Wiggins helping with spacing on that team. And he was a rookie who was just beginning to learn the nuances of how to play last season. Cleveland was in championship mode... not teaching the promising rookie how to play NBA basketball mode.

It's VERY VERY tough to say because it's pretty theoretical what would happen. When Wiggins was playing a complimentary role early on for a few games when people were healthy it wasn't that great but that was also early on in his season. Q looks at those points and sees a guy that didn't do well in that role.

Wiggins brilliance as a player offensively was him being a volume scorer for the Wolves. He would have had completely different opportunities with the Cavs but maybe he would have hit jumpers off easy looks. His shot looks good no doubt and of course you can't just take what jumpers he hit (which wasn't great) as a Wolf and project to what he would do getting easier looks as a Cav.

I will say this if Wiggins was on the Cavs in the Finals he may have had a decent chunk of chances to show his offensive game and maybe at that point he would have been ready for that stage. It's POSSIBLE but we don't know. It's fun to think about.

It's tough to ready say how good Wiggins was in the context of his place in ranking of other players based on the totality of his last year. His role in the worst team in the league clouds that both because of the players he played with and the opportunities he was able to get.

Last summer there was some article that was based on statistic that said rookies make underwhelming impact and there was quite a debate back and forth. Personally I tend to think some rookies probably have more impact beyond the stats than they get credit for but in a lot of cases rookies get praised for how well they did based on what you saw for the hope for the future and people may get a little carried away with their actual impact for their rookie season. As in many cases the answers are somewhere in the middle.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q, I'm also curious to see a list of "average players" that you believe were above Wiggins last year. Would help me understand why you'd say he was a below average player.

Well, I don't exactly have a precise list of players that I have fully thought through, but I would give Nic Batum as someone that was an average SF last season in my opinion.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Monster, It wasn't just the beginning of the year when Wiggins struggled in a more complementary role. From early February to mid-March, Martin and Rubio were back in the lineup and playing with Wiggins. So while that didn't take all of the pressure off of Wiggins, he was going into battle nightly with a couple of very competent guards. Martin especially took some of the scoring pressure off of Wiggins so that he wasn't having to spend so much energy on generating points, getting fouled, etc.

During that stretch of games, nothing really changed in terms of Wiggins' off-the-ball contributions. His rebounding remained at sub-5 per game. His steals didn't go up. He shot 16% from 3. So he didn't really display many of the things a team like Cleveland would have needed from him as a second or third fiddle to LeBron.

Again, we don't really know how things would have turned out for him in Cleveland last season. But the evidence we have does not suggest that he would have been a game-changer for them last season.

[Monster]

Q I agree with you although I don't know if the Cavs needed Wiggins to be a "game changer" (maybe defining terms would be good) but I think I get your point.

Q I think I tend to side with your assertion that Wiggins was a below average player especially since you said you had in mind starters or top rotation players (correct me if I am wrong there Q). The assertion is based on what we saw of him in the context of the Wolves both good and bad and that's what we have everything else is theoretical but sure it's worth considering. If someone wanted to say Wiggins was average or a little above average I don't really have an issue with that because when you rank guys there is a lot of subjectivity there which is perfectly reasonable. Every year there is threads articles ranking the PGs in the league SGs etc and at some point after the top few it gets murky quickly. Ranking Wiggins will be no different.

Having said that thinking a little more about it I may put Wiggins closer to average because Q is looking at Wiggins totality of his season. If you take that into account that hurts some players Wiggins would be ranked against because they missed significant portions of the season. When ranking average players you think about to be average in one sense you have to be about as good as the 7th or 8th man on a team. In some cases that's easier than others. GS and the Spurs are teams with pretty deep rosters and then you have some of the bottom teams that aren't as good. Like I said you also have teams with various players that were hurt a lot just like the Wolves so those guys would drop down because of not being on the floor. Also it's tough to say one guy isn't as valuable because he played his 25mpg role well but Wiggins was asked to play big minutes on a team that needed him too. Which guy was better more valuable? It's tough.