Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:The motor thing is hard to nail down with stats, but most of us know it when we see it. And there are outside observers that have also expressed frustration with Wiggins - this isn't just a few of us armchair pundits on this site.

Here is what I have observed with my eyes:

- I don't see Wiggins running hard all the time in transition (in both directions), although offensively I think he's gotten better now that Rubio (vs. LaVine last year) can get him the ball.

- I have never seen him take a charge - ever!

- When there is a scrum for a loose ball or 50/50 rebound, he almost never comes up with it. There was a game a week or two ago that I think I actually saw him get a crunch-time 50/50 ball and I sung his praises for it. But generally speaking, he doesn't win those balls.

- He gets fewer deflections (blocks and steals) and rebounds than someone with his size, position, and athleticism should. Will a lack of eye-popping stats in these areas mean he's not a good player? Of course not, but given his physical gifts, he just seems to underwhelm in these categories. A lot of folks talked about him being a Shawn Marion or Scottie Pippen sort of do-it-all athlete. Heck, he's not even Gerald Wallace in terms of using his athleticism to get deflections and rebounds.

I've said this a bunch of times before, but I see Wiggins becoming a rich man's DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan is not a jack-of-all trades wing either - he's mostly a scorer. I see Wiggins becoming a better version of that, which is obviously a really, really good player.

I think what's disappointing is given his length, athleticism, and pedigree, he could be even MORE than that if he had the motor of a Shabazz Muhammed, Corey Brewer, or Russell Westbrook. Imagine if he played the game as hard as those guys do? Now you are talking about perennial MVP-candidate type production.

Q, I was able to find stats for charges drawn. Using the only guys I am now able to compare Wiggins to (as defined by another side argument in this thread) here they are:
Jimmy Butler - 7
Andrew Wiggins - 1
Carmelo Anthony - 1
Klay Thompson - 0

A lot of scorers don't take charges. However, Wiggins does draw fouls at a high rate. He's 7th in the entire NBA in Free Throw Attempts.

50/50 balls gets thrown out on here a lot. But I am unaware of any database that defines or tracks such a metric. If someone has them - please post. I'd love to review to see how all our guys rate.

Rebounds/Blocks/Steals were addressed in another post. Wiggins rebounds slightly better than Klay Thompson and a little less than Butler/Anthony. The Blocks/Steals/assists are all about the same for that group (comparing all of them based on their 2nd years).

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on this matter. I just feel like the motor thing was getting a little over played.

Carlos Danger wrote:

Q12543 wrote:The motor thing is hard to nail down with stats, but most of us know it when we see it. And there are outside observers that have also expressed frustration with Wiggins - this isn't just a few of us armchair pundits on this site.

Here is what I have observed with my eyes:

- I don't see Wiggins running hard all the time in transition (in both directions), although offensively I think he's gotten better now that Rubio (vs. LaVine last year) can get him the ball.

- I have never seen him take a charge - ever!

- When there is a scrum for a loose ball or 50/50 rebound, he almost never comes up with it. There was a game a week or two ago that I think I actually saw him get a crunch-time 50/50 ball and I sung his praises for it. But generally speaking, he doesn't win those balls.

- He gets fewer deflections (blocks and steals) and rebounds than someone with his size, position, and athleticism should. Will a lack of eye-popping stats in these areas mean he's not a good player? Of course not, but given his physical gifts, he just seems to underwhelm in these categories. A lot of folks talked about him being a Shawn Marion or Scottie Pippen sort of do-it-all athlete. Heck, he's not even Gerald Wallace in terms of using his athleticism to get deflections and rebounds.

I've said this a bunch of times before, but I see Wiggins becoming a rich man's DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan is not a jack-of-all trades wing either - he's mostly a scorer. I see Wiggins becoming a better version of that, which is obviously a really, really good player.

I think what's disappointing is given his length, athleticism, and pedigree, he could be even MORE than that if he had the motor of a Shabazz Muhammed, Corey Brewer, or Russell Westbrook. Imagine if he played the game as hard as those guys do? Now you are talking about perennial MVP-candidate type production.

Q, I was able to find stats for charges drawn. Using the only guys I am now able to compare Wiggins to (as defined by another side argument in this thread) here they are:
Jimmy Butler - 7
Andrew Wiggins - 1
Carmelo Anthony - 1
Klay Thompson - 0

A lot of scorers don't take charges. However, Wiggins does draw fouls at a high rate. He's 7th in the entire NBA in Free Throw Attempts.

50/50 balls gets thrown out on here a lot. But I am unaware of any database that defines or tracks such a metric. If someone has them - please post. I'd love to review to see how all our guys rate.

Rebounds/Blocks/Steals were addressed in another post. Wiggins rebounds slightly better than Klay Thompson and a little less than Butler/Anthony. The Blocks/Steals/assists are all about the same for that group (comparing all of them based on their 2nd years).

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on this matter. I just feel like the motor thing was getting a little over played.

'Melo and Klay actually aren't bad comps for Wiggins - both are mostly scorers that don't excel much in other areas, although Klay has become a very solid individual defender and 'Melo has always been a solid rebounder. But otherwise, neither of these guys are do-it-all MVP types either. DeRozan, Carmelo, Klay....all very good players, none are MVP types in my opinion.

On the 50/50 balls, it's an observation, that's all I can say. I'm as big of a stats guy as anyone, but my eyes tell me that Wiggins loses these battles for possession more than he wins them. I have nothing else to back it up.

I'll add that the past few games Wiggins to me LOOKS like he has gotten more involved all over the court. One part of his game that has made big strides this season is his passing. Some teams have scoured him and sniffed out some passes but he will adjust. To me the whole team has gotten better at reacting in team defense and Wiggins has been a part of that.

Let's remember that were are all fans of the same team we are all on the same side. It's easy to take things too personally. We need to remember we are all fans of the same team trying to get out our thoughts observations and frustrations.

One stat that supports argument that Wiggins has questionable motor compared to some other Wolves players is average speed statistics. Those are available in player tracking part of stats in NBA.com. Wiggins has had slowest average speed of all Wolves players in defensive end except Pekovic. That is pretty bad especially if we consider that he is 20 year old and most athletically gifted player in Wolves roster. In offensive side Wiggins won't rank that low but still his average speed there is lower than all other Wolves wings except Prince.

Still it is pretty common that high usage offensive players that are playing heavy minutes are resting more in defensive end. Wiggins average speed in defensive end has been still higher than what Curry, Harden, Durant, Melo, CP3, Wall, Lowry, DeRozan or Westbrook has had. Leonard, Oladipo and Jimmy Butler are the only high usage offensive players that rank still near top also in average speed in defensive end. That supports their status as elite defensive players.

Mikkeman wrote:One stat that supports argument that Wiggins has questionable motor compared to some other Wolves players is average speed statistics. Those are available in player tracking part of stats in NBA.com. Wiggins has had slowest average speed of all Wolves players in defensive end except Pekovic. That is pretty bad especially if we consider that he is 20 year old and most athletically gifted player in Wolves roster. In offensive side Wiggins won't rank that low but still his average speed there is lower than all other Wolves wings except Prince.

Still it is pretty common that high usage offensive players that are playing heavy minutes are resting more in defensive end. Wiggins average speed in defensive end has been still higher than what Curry, Harden, Durant, Melo, CP3, Wall, Lowry, DeRozan or Westbrook has had. Leonard, Oladipo and Jimmy Butler are the only high usage offensive players that rank still near top also in average speed in defensive end. That supports their status as elite defensive players.

It's an interesting stat. But it's clearly not the Holy Grail of "motor meters". If I sort based on average speed using that metric, half of this year's All-Star roster will filter out as worse that Wiggins. So, if the intent is to paint Wiggins as having a "bad motor" based on that stat, then we'd have to apply the same label to some of the best players in the NBA. I don't think it's a reliable indicator for the purposes of determining "motor".

Carlos Danger wrote:
I think it's fair for people to point out that they want more from Wiggins in those other categories. Nobody on a lotto team should be above constructive criticism. My point was "the motor" talk doesn't seem to be applied consistently to other players on this team. But even using your above table to show Wiggins year to year delta:

Rebounds - Worse
Assists - Better
Steals - Worse
Blocks - Same
Turnovers - Better
Scoring - Better

So, he's same or better in four out of those six metrics. Maybe that's not the across the board improvement everyone wants. But my issue comes when people put too much weight in one single metric i.e. Rebounds, while losing sight of the overall big picture. PER encompasses a lot of the across the board measurables. Last year Wiggins had a PER of 13.9. This year it's 16.5. That's a nice improvement. And when you compare that rating to the second year Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler - he's certainly not lagging. Especially considering he's so much younger than those guys were their second years. Bottom line, in the grand scheme of things...I personally put Wiggins towards the bottom of my worry list heading into next year.

PER depends heavily about how good scorer player is. So all improvement in PER has come in case of Wiggins from his scoring. Out of all players with higher usage rate than 25% that play starters minutes, Wiggins has clearly worst PER. Next worst PER has McCollum with 17.5.

During Wiggins rookie season and especially before it, many of us were expecting him to become something like Pippen, Durant, Paul George, Tracy McGrady or Kawhi Leonard in terms of two way wing player that would excel in filling many statistical categories. Q and some others pointed Wiggins lack of rebounding and other non-scoring stats already during his rookie season but I for example believed that he can still be pretty good in those areas as well if he improves similar steps than Durant and LeBron for example improved in the beginning of their careers.

Currently it looks more and more likely that he won't ever be as good rebounder than those guys were and most probably he won't be able to get as many steals either. All the wing players that he was compared had already in their 2nd season rebounding rate better than 10% except Durant but even he had shown dramatic improvement there by increasing it from 6.9% to 9.6.

So currently it looks that Wiggins will be more like Gay, DeRozen, Melo, Klay Thompson or Joe Johnson than those jack of all trades type of wings he was earlier compared. Still if he can be as good scorer than these guys and really good individual defender like Klay Thompson is, he will be all star for sure.

One area where I will believe that Wiggins can still improve a lot, is passing. There are many star wing players that were not much of passers early in their career that have improved a lot later. Kawhi Leonard had assists rate below 8% in two first seasons and now he has improved it already to around 13%. Durant has assists rate around 13% in four first seasons and now he has had it above 20% already four consecutive years. Middleton and Butler have improved their assist rate to around 20% even though both had it below Wiggins level during their rookie seasons.

I have still some hope also about his rebounding since he is one of the best wing players in offensive rebounding. Out of all starting wings with higher usage than 22%, only Giannis, LeBron, Kawhi, Rudy Gay and Dwayne Wade have slightly better offensive rebounding rate than Wiggins has. Since all offensive rebounds are typically contested, I still think that Wiggins has that rebounding ability but for some reason he just doesn't spend enough effort on it in defensive side.

Mikkeman wrote:

PER depends heavily about how good scorer player is. So all improvement in PER has come in case of Wiggins from his scoring.

PER combines almost everything i.e. Points, Assists, Blocks, rebounds, Turnovers, steal etc. Example, Rubio has a higher PER than Wiggins this year while scoring only 10 points a game because of all the other stuff he does. I like PER because it's an overall stat vs. looking at one component. IMO, sometimes people lose perspective when looking at single components of a players game. I think that's the case with both Wiggins and Rubio.

If you compare Wiggins PER to the only people we are allowed to compare him to per the board moderator (Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and Carmelo Anthony), you'll see his second year PER is about the same or better than all of them had in their second year. He's doing just fine.

Carlos Danger wrote:

Mikkeman wrote:

PER depends heavily about how good scorer player is. So all improvement in PER has come in case of Wiggins from his scoring.

PER combines almost everything i.e. Points, Assists, Blocks, rebounds, Turnovers, steal etc. Example, Rubio has a higher PER than Wiggins this year while scoring only 10 points a game because of all the other stuff he does. I like PER because it's an overall stat vs. looking at one component. IMO, sometimes people lose perspective when looking at single components of a players game. I think that's the case with both Wiggins and Rubio.

If you compare Wiggins PER to the only people we are allowed to compare him to per the board moderator (Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and Carmelo Anthony), you'll see his second year PER is about the same or better than all of them had in their second year. He's doing just fine.

Why? Seriously?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Carlos Danger wrote:

Mikkeman wrote:

PER depends heavily about how good scorer player is. So all improvement in PER has come in case of Wiggins from his scoring.

PER combines almost everything i.e. Points, Assists, Blocks, rebounds, Turnovers, steal etc. Example, Rubio has a higher PER than Wiggins this year while scoring only 10 points a game because of all the other stuff he does. I like PER because it's an overall stat vs. looking at one component. IMO, sometimes people lose perspective when looking at single components of a players game. I think that's the case with both Wiggins and Rubio.

If you compare Wiggins PER to the only people we are allowed to compare him to per the board moderator (Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and Carmelo Anthony), you'll see his second year PER is about the same or better than all of them had in their second year. He's doing just fine.

Why? Seriously?

I was poking fun at our earlier riff. It was intended to be humorous but if it bothered you - I apologize. We're cool and I won't do it anymore.

Carlos Danger wrote:

Mikkeman wrote:

PER depends heavily about how good scorer player is. So all improvement in PER has come in case of Wiggins from his scoring.

PER combines almost everything i.e. Points, Assists, Blocks, rebounds, Turnovers, steal etc. Example, Rubio has a higher PER than Wiggins this year while scoring only 10 points a game because of all the other stuff he does. I like PER because it's an overall stat vs. looking at one component. IMO, sometimes people lose perspective when looking at single components of a players game. I think that's the case with both Wiggins and Rubio.

If you compare Wiggins PER to the only people we are allowed to compare him to per the board moderator (Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and Carmelo Anthony), you'll see his second year PER is about the same or better than all of them had in their second year. He's doing just fine.

He does reasonably well with PER because he's a volume scorer and PER loves volume on anything (except fouls and turnovers of course). How is his RPM, VORP, and Win Shares? Other metrics that look more at On/Off differentials, team defense, and overall efficiency don't quite see him progressing at the same rate as those others.

That being said, he's on a solid path to become an elite scorer in this league. I'm not quite sure he'll ever reach a Durant or Harden level of elite volume AND efficiency, but he's certainly capable if he keeps working on that 3-point shot.