Andrew Wiggins: How To Waste Generational Talent

if you asked me the question who is the most disappointing nba player that you have seen in your time as an nba fan the answer would be rather clear andrew wiggins wiggins has the frame and athleticism of an nba superstar he is a very good defender with an improving jump shot that's why he's the number one prospect in the 2014 nba draft andrew wiggins is the type of prospect who is destined for a great career in the nba ryan blake nba director of scouting and olive wigan's athleticism said he has huge upside the sky is the limit to me wiggins is the clear number one in this draft even if we were talking about a healthy joel embiid he is highly skilled on both ends of the floor has top level athleticism and you get the sense watching him that we are only seeing a small portion of what he can do ed isaacs of hoops habit canadian-born andrew wiggins is the best prospect to enter the league since lebron james was picked first overall 10 years ago roy burton of bleacher report now while i understand it might come off this way everything that i just read was not an attempt at like a gotcha everything that those people said was completely valid at the time andrew wiggins had about as much potential as anybody a 6-8 lengthy incredibly athletic wing with a smooth offensive game tenacity going to the basket and elite perimeter defense with plenty of room to grow to be sure here is his nbadraft.net grade he received a 99 he scores 10 in athleticism nine in size eight in defense seven in strength nine in quickness seven in leadership eight in shooting eight in nba ready eight in ball handling ten in potential seven in passing and eight in intangibles the guy was viewed as a damn near flawless prospect and as much as a sure thing as you could get but as we know andrew did not live up to his potential in the slightest like fell completely short and we all know this but in today's video i want to answer a very simple question why why did a generational talent end up turning into a mediocre overpaid disappointment let's find out why welcome to nba deep dive [Music] real quick before we dive into this one about 50 percent of the people that watch these videos are not subscribed so if you aren't subscribed already then do that you get to see these videos when they come out and it helps fuel my ego also the first episode of deep dive is one of my five most liked videos ever despite it only having about 75 000 views it got over 8k which is absurd because i have a video with a million views that barely cracks that the support is awesome but i also want to see if i can do it again so if you do me a favor and drop a like on this video that would be much appreciated let's talk about where the hype for wiggins began high school it would be a fair assessment to say that andrew wiggins is one of the 10 most hyped high school prospects in the history of basketball for those of you who might be a little bit younger andrew wiggins was to me what zion williamson was to a lot of newer basketball fans from the past like two or three seasons his hype was genuinely on par with zions andrew was a man amongst boys in high school at his sides with his athleticism he just killed everyone in front of him hell watching his highlights you would think that he didn't even see his defenders to begin with the guy was basically just shooting around andrew was part of the social media generation of nba prospects in fact he was one of the earliest examples of a social media sensation with his high school mixes reaching millions of views him appearing on the front of slam magazine alongside jabari parker the guy was as popular as it gets on the high school level and he took that popularity alongside his incredible talent on his way to college where he would play for the kansas jayhawks alongside fellow 5 star prospect joel embiid and in college andrew would continue to build the hype while there were some weaknesses in his game that became more clear at a higher level it also made his strengths appear even stronger in his freshman and only season andrew everett's 17 points and six rebounds had many amazing performances including a 40 bomb he dropped on west virginia where he also had eight rebounds four blocks and five steals andrew continued to display his jaw-dropping athleticism some of the more polished offensive elements of his game which hinted at his offensive potential but he also showed an area of his game that arguably had more upside than his offense his defense where andrew was a lockdown perimeter defender as well as a great shot blocker for a wing andrew was the big 12 freshman of the year of course made the big 12 all rookie team and was a 2013-14 all big 12 team member now i don't really understand the significance of that because i don't watch college basketball but i assume it's good and i can tell you from an outsider perspective regardless the hype from wiggins was continuing to build after losing to stanford in the ncaa tournament andrew declared for the nba draft and as a result going into the 2014 nba draft lottery everyone was there to see who would get the number one pick to draft wiggins and it would end up being the cleveland cavaliers who with kyrie irving are not much else well landing this pick was a big deal and to many the future prospect of a kyrie and wiggins duo was quite exciting cleveland would draft wiggins and in the summer league he would show out he averaged just 15 points per game but he did put up those points in an impressive fashion he was stepping into jump shots with confidence and flashing a mid-range game an ability to create space that led many people to believe that his offensive game had more polish than previously thought the future for wiggins and cleveland looked pretty bright but well there was some news that would change things if you've been waiting to find out what lebron james is gonna do turns out the ohio guy is going home turns out lebron james according to sports illustrated has decided to go back to cleveland hey everyone faizal here with you inside the sportsnet newsroom it appears a lot that the cleveland cavaliers will add love to their club and that andrew wiggins will start his nba career north of the 44th parallel according to multiple reports the cavaliers and minnesota timberwolves have agreed on a deal that will send all-star kevin love to cleveland in exchange for both first overall pick canadians wiggins and anthony bennett as well as a protected 2015 first rounder so now wiggins was headed into minnesota while there was briefly a potential of him playing his career early with potentially the greatest player of all time as his mentor he instead got corey brewer and kevin martin but andrew's rookie year was pretty good he averaged 17 points per game on not great efficiency but we saw flashes of what he could become but with the wolves being trashed they landed the number one pick in 2015 which they used to draft carl anthony towns and my feeling on this pick and i think the majority feeling at the time was wow karl anthony towns is going to be a really great second option to andrew wiggins which is hilarious in retrospect with cat the wolves didn't get much better but wiggins seemed to as he averaged 21 points on better efficiency and he had a few big moments including hitting a fade away over kobe where he told kobe i learned that from you and of course this sparked all kinds of talks about how wiggins was going to be the next kobe i thought when i saw that play that it was essentially just like when kobe hit a fade away over jordan when kobe was young a passing of the torch which is also hilarious in retrospect but in his third year while wiggins statistically had taken some leaps questions and doubts were starting to build up as there were definitely elements of his game that were disappointing he wasn't the slasher or defender he was expected to be but for the most part andrew had still been one of the better young players in the league so he got a pass with the duo of cat and wiggins alongside zach levine who was breaking out for the wolves averaging 19 that season really were not winning all that much despite the kobe and shaq comparisons that wiggins and cat got as a duo so coach and general manager of the wolves tom thibodeau decided he would make a win now move trading zach levine as was the number 7 pick and chris dunn for jimmy butler which immediately puzzled me because well i guess it's time for a brag real quick i made a video on why andrew wiggins would struggle in minnesota next to jimmy butler back in 2017 when the trade went down this was back when i had basically no subscribers but i ended up privating the video because i was getting a bunch of hate comments and i was flooded with dislikes by that i mean i got 23 dislikes to 9 likes and to me that was like the worst thing ever i was a bit of a [ __ ] but here's the thing even though i ended up privating the video because i felt like i was the idiot really i was the [ __ ] genius because i was completely right about this i think wiggins now becomes the third guy on the timberwolves with butler there when it was levine wiggins was clearly the second option but that's not the case anymore and i think there's a big chance that wiggins is kind of outcasted and potentially even traded now the reason i think this is one like i already said wiggins is going to have a lesser role on the wolves this season and his all-around game being terrible isn't helping his case if wiggins was a great scorer and defender playmaker and rebounder he would fit in great and spend more time focusing on more than just offense but that's not who wiggins is oh jesus christ dude get a better mic and stop taking so many long pauses in between your sentences i really had no [ __ ] clue what i was doing but as much of a [ __ ] as my 17 year old self was for privating that video i was right about all but one thing because i also said in that video that the timberwolves would not want to give andrew wiggins a max extension and that's why i believe they would end up trading him i failed to consider however that the minnesota timberwolves are one of the most incompetent franchises in league history the fourth year was bad for wiggins but good for the wolves because with an actually really good nba player and not andrew wiggins as the main guy the winning became a whole lot easier that being said due to an injury butler had that season the wolves fell all the way to the eighth seed and with the team without him being really bad butler started to feel like he was carrying the roster and that's because i mean he was this resulted in butler wanting out ending with a legendary tirade where he beat the wolf starters with the reserves trash talking all the way through so jimmy got traded again this time to the sixers and this would mean that the excuse for andrew's poor fourth year was gone and going with him into his fifth season was also a maximum contract now you might be thinking well andrew just had a down year and he has not really improved a whole lot since his rookie year and thus far he hasn't played at all like a max player well yeah but that wouldn't stop the wolves in fact the owner of the wolves glenn taylor first asked andrew to commit to improving so basically the timberwolves owner was like pretty please wiggins can you please put up effort okay here's all of the money take all of the money that i own what the [ __ ] are you doing but in his fifth year there was hope that andrew would turn it around i mean he did promise right and butler wasn't in his way anymore he should be better but no his numbers were nearly identical and the wolves were back to being trashed without butler but now wiggins being bad wasn't just disappointing it was also now a really bad investment 25 million dollars per year which would eventually turn into over 30 per year for an inefficient 18 points per game that is tough at this point wiggins had fully fallen out of public favor his game was being picked apart he was being called a bust no one was providing any more excuses for him outside of the few desperate stands there was no reason for andrew to be as bad as he was with the potential he had as many fingers as you can point andrew wiggins is the main reason why andrew wiggins wasn't as good as he could have been no one else year six comes around and there was actually a spark of poe for wiggins the wolves new head coach ryan saunders decided to run wiggins as the lead ball handler to hopefully keep him more engaged and it was kind of working for the first 25 games of the season wiggins averaged 25 points five rebounds and what is admittingly pathetically a career 3.3 assist and he did this on 45.5 33 74 splits where he shot nearly seven three-pointers a game but old habits die hard as his numbers fell back to reality after that stretch and it became clear that wiggins in minnesota was over he would be traded to a depleted golden state warriors roster along with a pretty damn good draft pick in exchange for d'angelo russell then the hope became that the golden state warriors would be an opportunity to turn over a new leaf and for the most part it kind of has been his first 12 games of the 2020 season in golden state or whatever but this season after a rough start he has been pretty good on both ends of the court especially defensively and he could potentially carve out a good role for himself from here on out but with that that catches us up to where he is today [Music] but now let's actually dissect why andrew did not end up being the player that he could have been figure out what went wrong real quick though i have to get something out of the way because believe it or not there are still people to this day that are making excuses for andrew wiggins don't get me wrong people should not be attacking him but there are legitimately people that don't think andrew wiggins has been a disappointment like what the [ __ ] are you talking about so just to get the biggest excuse from those people out of the way let's talk about the minnesota timberwolves now don't get me wrong the minnesota timberwolves in my opinion are the worst franchise in nba history which may or not be a video topic down the line and of course for a young player you don't want to land with the worst franchise in the league but that does not excuse wiggins other than the butler trade you really can't point to anything the wolves did that halted andrew's potential and even by that point the writing was on the wall for wiggins to fall short anyways the butler trade really just brought people to reality a reality that became even more clear after jimmy left and it was more the same andrew walked into a situation where he was told he was a future superstar he was viewed as a franchise cornerstone he was given more money than he ever had earned and he was given unlimited resources trainers anything he could ask for and he fell short that's on him no one else it's on andrew wiggins so now let's actually get to the real reasons why andrew fell short there's three big reasons to me why wiggins failed a lack of motor and ability to actually improve a lack of aggressiveness that resulted in him not taking advantage of his physical gifts and kobe wannabe itis trust me i'll explain that one let's talk about that motor the biggest issue you would come across on the board back when andrew was a prospect not yet in the nba was his lack of motor his work ethic was called into question but more importantly than that it's what you actually saw on the court it seemed like andrew was content being passive going multiple possessions without doing anything and really not being engaged with what was going on if he wasn't scoring this issue was actually giving timberwolves fans some ptsd like flashbacks when they drafted anthony edwards because he has some of these similar issues luckily at least anthony edwards is not expected to be a superstar the other half of this is that he didn't seem to know how to improve it's not necessarily that he didn't put in the work because andrew just being constantly in really great shape tells me that he likely does the work it's just not actually making him a better basketball player like just working out is not the solution you also need to know how to work out properly speaking from experience back when i had some intense delusions i mean extreme delusions of thinking that i was going to be an nba player one day i developed my skills to a certain point and then i hit a wall i didn't stop trying to get better i just didn't know how to take the proper steps to improve my game from where i had it to that point i would say i have not really gotten better at basketball in the last five years despite the fact that i play it rather consistently and while it is literally just a feeling i do feel like that is the biggest reason or at least one of the bigger reasons why andrew has fallen short because at least to me it doesn't seem like he's not putting in the work not that he's necessarily a hard worker but i don't think he's lazy but one of the biggest problems and probably the most slept on problem with andrew in terms of his failure is that he has kobe wannabe itis what i mean by this is andrew wiggins is somebody who grew up watching kobe bryant and clearly wanted to be him same by the way and what that results in is his game resembling kobe's quite significantly he does a lot of the same things that kobe does he takes the same shot same moves all of that but the difference is andrew wiggins isn't nearly as good as kobe to say the least and what i mean by his game resembles kobe's well basically i just mean the mid-range jump shot remember that offensive polish that i mentioned earlier in his career well really that was all sizzle no stake because wiggins could pull off these nice moves and create space but he never really finished them wiggins for his career shoots 36 from 10 to 16 feet and 34 from 16 feet to just inside the three-point line and 33 of his career field goal attempts come from these ranges so wiggins is taking these shots like he is kobe but he is not making these shots like he is kobe which is drastically harming his efficiency i mean one out of every three shots that andrew wiggins takes is a mid-range jump shot and he misses two out of every three of those that's a recipe for being really inefficient which andrew wiggins is the cure to kobe wannabe itis though i think has been found in another player who had the kobe wannabe itis and that is jason tatum the biggest reason to me why tatum took the leap that he did last year is that he turned a lot of his mid-range attempts into three-point attempts tatum always had the ability to create space off of the dribble for jumpers he has a very smooth offensive game and that's one of the reasons why he was such a highly touted prospect but his actual percentages as a mid-range shooter despite the ability to create that space were not good but going into his third season tatum increased his three-point volume by three attempts per game for his first two years he took 30 percent of his shots from mid-range and only shot about 40 percent which is better than wiggins and not horrible but it's still not great the last two seasons including this one just 21 of his shots are coming from mid-range and his three-point attempt rate has increased by eight percent so running the numbers tatum literally just turned his long twos into three pointers and i gotta wonder if tatum saved his career trajectory by making that adjustment and wiggins tanked his by not granted i will say this example does not work entirely just because tatum is clearly a much better overall shooter than wiggins and always has been but really outside of jump shots andrew could have still been awesome even if his jump shot was not amazing if he just took advantage of his physical gifts like wiggins can get his head above the rim like it's nothing if you watched his high school highlights you'd think he could rival vince carter as a leaper that's how crazy his athleticism was during the draft combine his vertical measured in at 44 inches which is just four inches less than michael jordan's and actually an inch higher than the man himself vince sanity but while wigan sure does have a fair share of crazy dunks in his career you wouldn't think of him as some high flyer or crazy finisher because he simply does not take advantage of his vertical speed length and overall athleticism what's the point of being able to jump higher than vince goddamn carter as a 6'8 ford with a 7 foot wingspan if all you're going to do with that is shoot mid-range jump shots all day if you do that then of course you're going to fall short of your potential see from time to time i will watch andrew wiggins and be like well what did people really see in this guy and i'll go back and i'll get reminded when i watch his high school mixtape this guy is not even close to the same as what he was in high school and to be fair obviously there is a drastic difference in talent but the difference that i'm referring to is not that he's just dominating his competition it's his play style when you watch wiggins play in high school he relentlessly attacked the basket relentlessly but whether it be from kobe wanna be itis his attacking ability not translating at an nba level to nearly a degree that it's thought that it would or just his overall passiveness none of that is translated in the nba the relentlessness attacking the basket in high school is the reason he drew lebron comparisons in the first place he came into the nba he wanted to play kobe when he did not have that skill but where is wiggins now what does his future look like well he is currently sitting in golden state though the incompetence of the timberwolves is far from the main reasons wiggins failed that sure as hell wasn't helping one of the best run organizations and basketball on the other hand is helping wiggins is shooting a career-high from three he has a league average through shooting percentage for the first time in his career and most importantly he is putting up effort on defense and is actually a positive defender for the first time in his career and i do hope that this is where he stays for the rest of his career because this is an opportunity for andrew to be a stable reliable piece on a good team and hopefully eventually a great team but now i want to talk about a heavily debated topic surrounding andrew wiggins and that is the question is andrew wiggins a bust um yes yes he's a bust i don't know why it's a debate when you look at the potential that andrew had and then look at what he is today he doesn't even slightly hold up andrew was expected to be a superstar he drew comparisons to lebron and kobe and as crazy as it sounds those comparisons were valid defensively he was expected to be a lockdown defender and for most of his career he has been a bad defender he was supposed to be one of the best slashers in the nba and he sure as hell ain't that in every possible metric andrew wiggins has fallen short of his expectations which with my definition of a bust and i think what should be the majority definition of a bust would make him one of the biggest busts in nba history now there are some people with i'll be fair enough and say just a different definition of a bust who will argue that well can you say a guy who is just a good nba player is really a bust well one in my opinion yes you can if you were expected to be a great player and you were just a good player but two is andrew wiggins a good player or has he been for most of his career cause i would say no sure maybe earlier it looked that way and recently he's been good and golden state but for most of his career andrew has been a very inefficient scorer who doesn't space the floor at more than a passable level has no off-ball ability whatsoever and outside of scoring contributes literally nothing for a starting forward his rebounding numbers are mediocre he has tunnel vision and can't pass for [ __ ] and despite all of his defensive potential for most of his career he has been a bad defender so offensively he can't pass can't score without the ball and the scoring that he does provide comes in an inefficient fashion that interrupts the flow of the offense and overall contributes to a negative offense so he's not positive on offense and he's not a positive defender and he does all of this making max money now as i said wiggins has been much better in golden state and maybe this will be the turning point where he is a consistently good nba player and he carves himself out a consistent role in the league but for most of his career wiggins has been a negative for his team in the nba [Music] so yes andrew wiggins is a bust and it is sad to say because i can tell you as somebody who grew up loving kobe the prospect of me getting to see the next kobe from start to finish of his career got me real excited when i really learned who andrew wiggins was instead we got the next what rudy gay might be being generous there so that was andrew wiggins how to waste generational talent this video was posted a day earlier over on my patreon so if you would like to get these nba deep dives a day early every week then go support me over there it makes my job easier and it helps you support content that you want to support and you get videos earlier but if you don't want to do that that's fine i would appreciate instead a like and especially a subscription for more nba videos like this but that is the end of this video please be sure to like subscribe for mba content like this and kidiac music [Music] you

Channel: Rusty Buckets

Views: 201,304

Rating: 4.9057689 out of 5

Keywords: Andrew wiggins, Andrew wiggins highlights, Andrew wiggins mix, Andrew wiggins high school, Andrew wiggins dunk, Andrew wiggins warriors, Andrew wiggins bust, Andrew wiggins career high, Andrew wiggins interview, Andrew wiggins college highlights, Andrew wiggins college, Andrew wiggins warriors highlights, nba, NBA, basketball, Andrew wiggins trade, Andrew wiggins high school highlights, Minnesota timberwolves, golden state warriors, warriors, timberwolves, kansas Jayhawks

Id: AchzlwnZ79Q

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021