Better ballhandling, better shooting (not that Wiggins' shot is bad by any means), and offensive sets can be taught. Wiggins' athletic gifts cannot be taught. So yes, a lot of Wiggins' hype is based on potential because that is what NBA GMs look for in a superstar-driven league. That is not a difficult concept to understand. Wiggins is a prize while the Kyle Andersons and the Doug McDermotts of the world are not because they have physical limitations to their game.
You do realize that we aren't running a decathlon here, right?
This is the biggest misnomer about college prospects and it drives me nuts. The athleticism argument works when you are debating players who will not translate to the next level. It does NOT mean that as long as you are an athlete you can be excused for a lack of basketball talent. You need more than just athletic ability to be a great NBA player.
And LOL and naming some of the most important skills for a 3 in the NBA to have and acting like they don't mean anything. "Yeah, he moves well off the ball and uses athleticism to create rebound/putback op portunities and shoots the 3 and is great in transition and plays team ball BUT DOES HE HAVE A FULLY DEVELOPED OFFENSIVE REPERTOIRE AND POINT FORWARD SKILLS AT AGE 19?"
The funny thing is, most of the things you listed aren't even true. He is not creating rebound and putback opportunities, the guy gets less than 6 rebounds per game. If you think shooting 35 % from the college 3 is a point in his favor, then you are clueless. There is no other way to put it. And he plays team ball? Based on what? If Andrew Wiggins plays team ball by barely averaging 1 assist per game then I guess every NBA prospect does the same. Not a point in his favor.
None of the prospects in this class are LeBron James caliber players. Not one person thinks Wiggins is supposed They might not even be Kevin Durant caliber players. If we're only evaluating college production then Parker has been a disappointment, Embiid can't stay on the floor, and Smart has shown little sign of improvement. None of this means Wiggins can't be a special player and shouldn't be going near the top. You act like there's nothing in between average scrub starter and top 10 all-time player.
All in all this is the worst serious post I have seen in a long while. If Parker is a disappointment by outproducing Wiggins in virtually every statistical category despite being ranked below him as a prospect, then Wiggins has been a trainwreck by comparison. Embiid has struggled to stay on the floor, and of course to you that's a critical flaw. But all of Wiggins flaws can be swept under the rug, while we nitpick players who are better than him right now.
There are several indications that Wiggins has no shot to be a special player. The fact that he struggles to finish at the rim despite being " a terrific athlete," the fact that he disappears every few games and winds up hurting his team, the fact that he is not a good shooter nor can he create offense with any consistency, the fact that he is supposed to be a great defender but no statistical evidence backs this up, the fact that he is forced to play off the ball because he lacks the skills necessary to be a go to guy on offense.
But nobody wants to acknowledge any of this. Instead the pro-Wiggins crowd will continue to pick nits at every other prospect in order to prop him up. It's annoying because people like yourself eliminate the possibility of any objective talk about the prospects on this board. It's all just excuses and slurping of certain players