Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Yeah, I had to scroll up and check, too!!!

I have frequently lamented about Wiggins' shortcomings. I loved Zach and his potential, but if forced to trade one of them away, it would have been Zach -- Wiggins ceiling is so much higher.

I think a common pitfall that many of us hit, including me, is we had such high expectations for Wiggins coming out of college. We expected him to become a superstar so much faster than an average rookie progresses. But he is human after all, and needs time to develop completely. The book is still open as to how well-rounded his game can become, but we will just have to wait it out like most other rookies. Giving him the 5-year max is pretty much automatic at this point.

Makes perfect sense, get it done during the season. If we waited a team could add all these things to the contact ala 20% trade kicker, 2 year no trade clause, has to be paid 80% of yearly salary upfront.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Khansy and Cool together at the same time? Hmm...

I also believe Butler/Wig/KAT are the building blocks of this franchise, and that Thibs won't want to trade him in the future. But does anyone think OkC wanted to trade Harden...of course not, they had to. And there is a scenario out there where Thibs might have to trade Wig. PG is a vitally important position in this league, and if Tyus doesn't convince Thibs that he can be given the reins, I think Thibs will be forced to keep Teague for 2019-20 (one of the reasons I still think Thibs blundered in making the Rubio deal...Ricky seems like the kind of guy who might have taken to home town discount in order to win a championship). We'll be over the cap, so there's no chance of picking up a good free agent PG, so I think in that situation Thibs would keep Teague over Wig. But I don't see this as the tragedy some here do, because I think Wig would be very marketable and would bring back some excellent lower-priced talent (and draft picks) to pair with KAT, Butler and Teague.

longstrangetrip wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Khansy and Cool together at the same time? Hmm...

I also believe Butler/Wig/KAT are the building blocks of this franchise, and that Thibs won't want to trade him in the future. But does anyone think OkC wanted to trade Harden...of course not, they had to. And there is a scenario out there where Thibs might have to trade Wig. PG is a vitally important position in this league, and if Tyus doesn't convince Thibs that he can be given the reins, I think Thibs will be forced to keep Teague for 2019-20 (one of the reasons I still think Thibs blundered in making the Rubio deal...Ricky seems like the kind of guy who might have taken to home town discount in order to win a championship). We'll be over the cap, so there's no chance of picking up a good free agent PG, so I think in that situation Thibs would keep Teague over Wig. But I don't see this as the tragedy some here do, because I think Wig would be very marketable and would bring back some excellent lower-priced talent (and draft picks) to pair with KAT, Butler and Teague.

In case you were interested in what the guys at fivethirtyeight think Wiggins is worth:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/andrew-wiggins/

These are just projections, in part based on Wiggins' past performance, and in part based on factors outside of his control. So they are not perfect, but they are usually fairly accurate on these. One example where they were somewhat wrong: last year they predicted a pretty nice step up for a certain former #1 pick, but that didn't happen. They're predicting another, somewhat smaller, step for that player next year, in part because the history of #1 picks suggests he's likely to improve. That player is Andrew Wiggins.

I get that Wiggins can score a lot of points. I get that he's crazy athletic. I get that he's young. I get that his perceived value in the league right now is way higher than how fivethirtyeight values him and that's what matters when it comes to his possible tradeability. For now.

But the advanced numbers are hard to ignore, and as analytics continues taking over the league, Wiggins' value is going to drop unless he makes huge steps toward becoming a more versatile, impactful player soon.

Right now, the numbers guys like fivethirtyeight see that he is not a net positive contributor on the floor. His total plus/minus has been a negative all three years he's been in the league. He's young, and part of that is a reflection of the team, but the trajectory for him in this area is not pretty. They don't project a positive plus/minus from him until 2020. And his WARP actually decreased to .1 games last year. In addition to the concerns about his hustle and competitiveness, to the worries about his defense, to the rumblings about his lack of production in anything other than scoring, these stats from number nerds are another bit of evidence that make me skeptical about Wiggins, as much as I really WANT him to pan out. He's a fun player to watch, and he's already such a great scorer at a young age. I'm really hoping the move to the 2 and playing alongside more vets will help him a lot.

His value is still high. He could have gotten us Paul George this offseason. He probably would have been enough to get Butler straight up. But when he's making 25 million, when he's a year older and we can't rely as much on his youth to keep people believing in his potential, unless he's made a big improvement, all of this evidence is going to make a 5 year contract look less like a tradeable asset and more like a liability and his trade value is going to go down. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay him what the market thinks. But I am saying that I would really expect to see some serious improvement from him this year to justify that money or I would start keeping an eye out about possible trades while we can still get something very good in return.

SameOldDrew wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Khansy and Cool together at the same time? Hmm...

I also believe Butler/Wig/KAT are the building blocks of this franchise, and that Thibs won't want to trade him in the future. But does anyone think OkC wanted to trade Harden...of course not, they had to. And there is a scenario out there where Thibs might have to trade Wig. PG is a vitally important position in this league, and if Tyus doesn't convince Thibs that he can be given the reins, I think Thibs will be forced to keep Teague for 2019-20 (one of the reasons I still think Thibs blundered in making the Rubio deal...Ricky seems like the kind of guy who might have taken to home town discount in order to win a championship). We'll be over the cap, so there's no chance of picking up a good free agent PG, so I think in that situation Thibs would keep Teague over Wig. But I don't see this as the tragedy some here do, because I think Wig would be very marketable and would bring back some excellent lower-priced talent (and draft picks) to pair with KAT, Butler and Teague.

In case you were interested in what the guys at fivethirtyeight think Wiggins is worth:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/andrew-wiggins/

These are just projections, in part based on Wiggins' past performance, and in part based on factors outside of his control. So they are not perfect, but they are usually fairly accurate on these. One example where they were somewhat wrong: last year they predicted a pretty nice step up for a certain former #1 pick, but that didn't happen. They're predicting another, somewhat smaller, step for that player next year, in part because the history of #1 picks suggests he's likely to improve. That player is Andrew Wiggins.

I get that Wiggins can score a lot of points. I get that he's crazy athletic. I get that he's young. I get that his perceived value in the league right now is way higher than how fivethirtyeight values him and that's what matters when it comes to his possible tradeability. For now.

But the advanced numbers are hard to ignore, and as analytics continues taking over the league, Wiggins' value is going to drop unless he makes huge steps toward becoming a more versatile, impactful player soon.

Right now, the numbers guys like fivethirtyeight see that he is not a net positive contributor on the floor. His total plus/minus has been a negative all three years he's been in the league. He's young, and part of that is a reflection of the team, but the trajectory for him in this area is not pretty. They don't project a positive plus/minus from him until 2020. And his WARP actually decreased to .1 games last year. In addition to the concerns about his hustle and competitiveness, to the worries about his defense, to the rumblings about his lack of production in anything other than scoring, these stats from number nerds are another bit of evidence that make me skeptical about Wiggins, as much as I really WANT him to pan out. He's a fun player to watch, and he's already such a great scorer at a young age. I'm really hoping the move to the 2 and playing alongside more vets will help him a lot.

His value is still high. He could have gotten us Paul George this offseason. He probably would have been enough to get Butler straight up. But when he's making 25 million, when he's a year older and we can't rely as much on his youth to keep people believing in his potential, unless he's made a big improvement, all of this evidence is going to make a 5 year contract look less like a tradeable asset and more like a liability and his trade value is going to go down. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay him what the market thinks. But I am saying that I would really expect to see some serious improvement from him this year to justify that money or I would start keeping an eye out about possible trades while we can still get something very good in return.

He's a high level scorer at 22. Advanced stats can say whatever they want. He has the most valuable skill in the NBA. He can put the ball in the bucket at a high level. The one thing that allows teams to easily overlook the advanced stats is his scoring ability. Kyrie, Melo, IT, Lillard, Kemba and on and on. Guys who put the ball in the bucket at a high level and don't do much else are still highly valued in this league. And that's just if he doesn't improve at all at this point.

khans2k5 wrote:

SameOldDrew wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Khansy and Cool together at the same time? Hmm...

I also believe Butler/Wig/KAT are the building blocks of this franchise, and that Thibs won't want to trade him in the future. But does anyone think OkC wanted to trade Harden...of course not, they had to. And there is a scenario out there where Thibs might have to trade Wig. PG is a vitally important position in this league, and if Tyus doesn't convince Thibs that he can be given the reins, I think Thibs will be forced to keep Teague for 2019-20 (one of the reasons I still think Thibs blundered in making the Rubio deal...Ricky seems like the kind of guy who might have taken to home town discount in order to win a championship). We'll be over the cap, so there's no chance of picking up a good free agent PG, so I think in that situation Thibs would keep Teague over Wig. But I don't see this as the tragedy some here do, because I think Wig would be very marketable and would bring back some excellent lower-priced talent (and draft picks) to pair with KAT, Butler and Teague.

In case you were interested in what the guys at fivethirtyeight think Wiggins is worth:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/andrew-wiggins/

These are just projections, in part based on Wiggins' past performance, and in part based on factors outside of his control. So they are not perfect, but they are usually fairly accurate on these. One example where they were somewhat wrong: last year they predicted a pretty nice step up for a certain former #1 pick, but that didn't happen. They're predicting another, somewhat smaller, step for that player next year, in part because the history of #1 picks suggests he's likely to improve. That player is Andrew Wiggins.

I get that Wiggins can score a lot of points. I get that he's crazy athletic. I get that he's young. I get that his perceived value in the league right now is way higher than how fivethirtyeight values him and that's what matters when it comes to his possible tradeability. For now.

But the advanced numbers are hard to ignore, and as analytics continues taking over the league, Wiggins' value is going to drop unless he makes huge steps toward becoming a more versatile, impactful player soon.

Right now, the numbers guys like fivethirtyeight see that he is not a net positive contributor on the floor. His total plus/minus has been a negative all three years he's been in the league. He's young, and part of that is a reflection of the team, but the trajectory for him in this area is not pretty. They don't project a positive plus/minus from him until 2020. And his WARP actually decreased to .1 games last year. In addition to the concerns about his hustle and competitiveness, to the worries about his defense, to the rumblings about his lack of production in anything other than scoring, these stats from number nerds are another bit of evidence that make me skeptical about Wiggins, as much as I really WANT him to pan out. He's a fun player to watch, and he's already such a great scorer at a young age. I'm really hoping the move to the 2 and playing alongside more vets will help him a lot.

His value is still high. He could have gotten us Paul George this offseason. He probably would have been enough to get Butler straight up. But when he's making 25 million, when he's a year older and we can't rely as much on his youth to keep people believing in his potential, unless he's made a big improvement, all of this evidence is going to make a 5 year contract look less like a tradeable asset and more like a liability and his trade value is going to go down. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay him what the market thinks. But I am saying that I would really expect to see some serious improvement from him this year to justify that money or I would start keeping an eye out about possible trades while we can still get something very good in return.

He's a high level scorer at 22. Advanced stats can say whatever they want. He has the most valuable skill in the NBA. He can put the ball in the bucket at a high level. The one thing that allows teams to easily overlook the advanced stats is his scoring ability. Kyrie, Melo, IT, Lillard, Kemba and on and on. Guys who put the ball in the bucket at a high level and don't do much else are still highly valued in this league. And that's just if he doesn't improve at all at this point.

The CARMELO stuff is fun but it also suggests Anthony Bennett (that's who Inwas thinking the mystery 1st rounder may have been! Lol) is more of a functional player when it comes to salary the next few years than a guy like LMAM which is pretty hilarious. I'm not saying it's worthless but it's not the gospel either.

Like Kahns said when it comes to the playoffs you need some very high level scorers and there is plenty of reason to think Wiggins can be one of those guys. His ability to score is pretty impressive for a guy his age. He can score all over the floor.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Wiggins and KAT are the decade long building blocks. They aren't going anywhere if you can keep them. Butler/Wiggins/Towns are the building blocks for the duration of Butler's next deal. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. You don't trade Wiggins so you can keep Teague. You can't complain that this offseason was full of short-sighted moves and then argue we should trade Wiggins at any point. He's 22. He's still 4 years away from hitting his prime. I just don't get the Wiggins attitude on most of this board. He's the premier iron man in the league behind Lebron at this point and he's already a good scorer at 22 in a league run by older, more experienced players. What's he gonna look like when he becomes that older more experienced player? A virtually unstoppable offensive force? He's really good for a 22 year old. Sorry he's not Durant or other top 3 players when they were 22, but his floor right now is a damn good #2 option which fits perfectly with Towns who is setup to be a #1 option.

Wait, did I write this? :d

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Khansy and Cool together at the same time? Hmm...

I also believe Butler/Wig/KAT are the building blocks of this franchise, and that Thibs won't want to trade him in the future. But does anyone think OkC wanted to trade Harden...of course not, they had to. And there is a scenario out there where Thibs might have to trade Wig. PG is a vitally important position in this league, and if Tyus doesn't convince Thibs that he can be given the reins, I think Thibs will be forced to keep Teague for 2019-20 (one of the reasons I still think Thibs blundered in making the Rubio deal...Ricky seems like the kind of guy who might have taken to home town discount in order to win a championship). We'll be over the cap, so there's no chance of picking up a good free agent PG, so I think in that situation Thibs would keep Teague over Wig. But I don't see this as the tragedy some here do, because I think Wig would be very marketable and would bring back some excellent lower-priced talent (and draft picks) to pair with KAT, Butler and Teague.

In case you were interested in what the guys at fivethirtyeight think Wiggins is worth:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/andrew-wiggins/

These are just projections, in part based on Wiggins' past performance, and in part based on factors outside of his control. So they are not perfect, but they are usually fairly accurate on these. One example where they were somewhat wrong: last year they predicted a pretty nice step up for a certain former #1 pick, but that didn't happen. They're predicting another, somewhat smaller, step for that player next year, in part because the history of #1 picks suggests he's likely to improve. That player is Andrew Wiggins.

I get that Wiggins can score a lot of points. I get that he's crazy athletic. I get that he's young. I get that his perceived value in the league right now is way higher than how fivethirtyeight values him and that's what matters when it comes to his possible tradeability. For now.

But the advanced numbers are hard to ignore, and as analytics continues taking over the league, Wiggins' value is going to drop unless he makes huge steps toward becoming a more versatile, impactful player soon.

Right now, the numbers guys like fivethirtyeight see that he is not a net positive contributor on the floor. His total plus/minus has been a negative all three years he's been in the league. He's young, and part of that is a reflection of the team, but the trajectory for him in this area is not pretty. They don't project a positive plus/minus from him until 2020. And his WARP actually decreased to .1 games last year. In addition to the concerns about his hustle and competitiveness, to the worries about his defense, to the rumblings about his lack of production in anything other than scoring, these stats from number nerds are another bit of evidence that make me skeptical about Wiggins, as much as I really WANT him to pan out. He's a fun player to watch, and he's already such a great scorer at a young age. I'm really hoping the move to the 2 and playing alongside more vets will help him a lot.

His value is still high. He could have gotten us Paul George this offseason. He probably would have been enough to get Butler straight up. But when he's making 25 million, when he's a year older and we can't rely as much on his youth to keep people believing in his potential, unless he's made a big improvement, all of this evidence is going to make a 5 year contract look less like a tradeable asset and more like a liability and his trade value is going to go down. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay him what the market thinks. But I am saying that I would really expect to see some serious improvement from him this year to justify that money or I would start keeping an eye out about possible trades while we can still get something very good in return.

Reports are it's going to be closer to $30 million.

From ESPN Report:

The Minnesota Timberwolves are keen to lock up guard Andrew Wiggins to ensure he is a cornerstone for their future.

Wiggins and the Timberwolves are engaged in contract negotiations on a five-year extension that would be worth nearly $148 million, according to Timberwolves coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau.

"We're working on it right now," Thibodeau said Wednesday during a news conference to introduce Jamal Crawford.

Under the collective bargaining agreement, NBA teams can have two players on designated rookie-scale extensions. Such deals must be agreed to by one day before the start of the season.

The extension would take effect in 2018-19 with a starting salary of $25.5 million that season. The sides could agree to terms where, if Wiggins made an all-NBA team or was named Defensive Player of the Year in 2017-18, that figure would jump to $30.6 million.

He's going to get the 5-year max. Thibs has made that clear. I think that's the right decision unless you're ready right now to trade him. I'm not there.

But an interesting question for all of you is this: Who or what combination of assets would you be willing to trade Wiggins for right now within the realm of what's realistic? I'd trade him straight up for the Greek Freak, but that's not realistic, so that's an acceptable answer to this question. Paul George was probably a realistic possibility, but I'm really glad we didn't trade Wiggins for a likely 1-year rental like PG. Honestly, I can't think of a realistic trade I'd be willing to do at this point. OK, have at it!

You don't reward someone before they've proven themselves to work without. That is my biggest gripe with an early signing. Like I posted before, KAT deserves an extension immediately. Wiggins does not. There is no benefit to signing him this season. None at all. If he flops this year, then maybe we get him for a lighter deal over 4 seasons. If he develops more, then we still keep him at a lower cost than signing him now. This isn't a bad move, but it still isn't the right move.