It's been 5 yrs. Can we now say Andrew Wiggins is a Bust?

[ajdontwatchthat]

And btw Ingram is next to enter this overhyped prospect who ends up being a scrub territory.

Ingram is more efficient, can pass and is an above average defender, he just doesn't fit with LeBron.

[Michael Jordan]

Anyone can put up 20 PPG with enough shots. Dude is averaging 18 points on 17 shots this year. He's beyond awful.

Can you put up 20 PPG?

Am I an NBA player?

But sure, I could score 20 points on 20 shots in rec league, just like any bum in the NBA can score 20 points on 20 shots.

But can Bennet, Thabeet, Vesley, Morrison, Milicic all put up 20PPG on a 44% FG% over the course of their career?

The point I'm making is that a "bust" is normally a lottery pick whose incapable of even being signed to an NBA contract. Wiggins is a chucker, inefficient, and extremely overpaid. But if he was a free agent right now a number of teams would sign him.

[Clemenza]

It is kinda of crazy how he was supposed to have next but he has yet to even came close to sniffing an all star appearance. Not one

[bringinhinkie]

A bust isn't capable of putting up 20PPG over 5 seasons. Wiggins is just criminally overpaid.

plenty of guys playing overseas/china/dleague can put up 20ppg in the nba with freedom/fga .. just won't lead to wins

ppg in today's nba means very little .. it has never been easier to score (hence why it is the worst product to watch in terms of major sports.. borderline unwatchable league at this point .. closer to AAU than the nba of 80s and 90s golden era)

he's still 23, so I wouldn't say bust yet .. i'd love to know why he is taking 5 threes per game though at 33% (for the season and his career).. none of these coaches can hold this kid accountable? he's regressing as well

unbelievable this kid is making 25.5mill / 27 / 29 / 31 / 33 a season .. nba gms are hilarious

[Teen Girl Squad]

Why are people perpetuating this myth? Wiggins IS NOT serviceable and is a DEEP bench player at best.
Look at what Kwame, Bargnani, Tyrus Thomas, etc. did from 20-25... In what ways are these players "Bust", but Wiggins isnt?

Ya thats what Im not getting. I dont recall people making these kind of arguments for Kwame and Bargnani, people just flat out said they were busts (which they were). The funny thing is, Wiggins arguably has the worst advanced stats out of all of them. Yet there are a good amount of people not willing to call him a bust and say the only reason people are calling him a bust is because his contract.

I don't get this thread. Wiggins is so far over the threshold for being a bust that he can't even see it from the rear view mirror.

Basically, the argument for him not being a bust revolves around Minnesota letting him be awful in lots of minutes and getting lots of shots. That's crazy. Its not about his contract, nor his draft position. He is an outright bad player.

Yup. This is Melo all over again and unlike Melo, he was never actually good in the league at any point. He's an extreme example of how much people overrated draft hype, physical talent, first impressions and pure PPGs. Never have a seen a bust of his level be given so many free passes. As long as he flashes the occasional amazing play, he'll continue to get passes .

[thinktank]

I didn’t know that. Negative comments about Wiggins are deserved. I’m not standing in the way. Nobody could ever stop that but Wiggins. Just asked a question. Keep your pants on.

Thanks, taikibansei, for educating me and not needlessly acting like an ass.

Liar. You know exactly what those stats are.

This isnt the first time he has expressed his concern that these stats may be "fake news" because they destroy his "argument".

Wrong again. I don’t care that any argument is destroyed, much less my own. What’s my argument anyway? Quote me. I didn’t even know that twitter handle had a website.

We’re all dismayed with Wiggins’ underperformance thus far.

Not sorry to burst your bubble of erroneous claims.

[Buzzard]

Not a bust but not anything near a #1 pick and a max contract. He really needs to get past this shooting funk. .440 career average vs current average of .396. I don't know what happened to him last season; but something or someone got in his head and he has not been the same. Which was at least a 3rd or 4th scoring option on a good team.

[Jadoogar]

not a bust but underwhelming. he's not a game changer.

Relative to his draft position, he certainly has to be considered a bust. He's not Bargnani/Olowakandi level but definitely one of the worse #1 picks.

[John Murdoch]

He's hardly a bust. He's just overpaid. And that isn't his fault.

wiggins burner

[Raps in 4]

He's not a bust.
A bust wouldn't get a max contract extension.

He's a scorer. And that's all.

The projections when he was in high school and college and comparisons to Jordan,Kobe, Tracy were always stupid

How does a mismanaged organization giving him a max contract preclude him from being a bust?

[Asianiac_24]

I'd say he is. He is an extremely inefficient scorer who does nothing else at even average level.

[swyftdahoe]

Wiggins just seems to lack the intelligence to pattern recognize at the level needed to exploit his tremendous physical gifts.

[leolozon]

A bust isn't capable of putting up 20PPG over 5 seasons. Wiggins is just criminally overpaid.

plenty of guys playing overseas/china/dleague can put up 20ppg in the nba with freedom/fga .. just won't lead to wins

ppg in today's nba means very little .. it has never been easier to score (hence why it is the worst product to watch in terms of major sports.. borderline unwatchable league at this point .. closer to AAU than the nba of 80s and 90s golden era)

he's still 23, so I wouldn't say bust yet .. i'd love to know why he is taking 5 threes per game though at 33% (for the season and his career).. none of these coaches can hold this kid accountable? he's regressing as well

unbelievable this kid is making 25.5mill / 27 / 29 / 31 / 33 a season .. nba gms are hilarious

And this was avoidable by just waiting one more year and see if he was able to progress. There was a big thread right around the time he was supposed to sign that contract and I remember arguing with some Wolves' fans that Wiggins shouldn't be getting the max, that he didn't get better since the second half of his rookie year, that the odds of Wiggins suddenly making a jump and becoming a great player were extremely low. And those fans kept saying how young he was and that he was already scoring 20ppg (as if all "20ppg" are the same).

I won't name names, but messages like that :

" Wiggins is 22 and is a elite scorer and all the flaws in his game arent that difficult to correct. People on this sight have tunnel vision they act like wiggins is a finished product at the age of 22. There aren't many players in the NBA that have the athleticism and upside as Wiggins does."
(I would say that being disengaged is really hard to correct as you would need to be engaged to correct it. It's also a flaw that makes it difficult to correct every possible flaws.)

"When you've got a guy with Wiggins' ceiling, age and talent coming up for extension you max him, I think every other team would do the same."

And of course those pro-Wiggins people were pretty much all against advanced stats, thinking they they knew better :

(About Wiggins being a subpar role player)
"Lol they are so jealous. I don't know how you can think that way if you actually watched him play. And they just spew advanced stats, I thought they would be gone for a while "

"I find that the vast majority of people who make themselves out to be experts and utilize stats so heavily watch very little ball outside of their own team and solely rely on statistics when it comes to player evaluations on other teams."

[Edrees]

And btw Ingram is next to enter this overhyped prospect who ends up being a scrub territory.

What do you have against Andre Ingram? Dude finally realized his dream and you have to put him down. He's also a career 0.556% 3 point shooter.

[picc]

The only thing thats clear is that people have different definitions of what a bust is, and none of them are wrong.

[BR0D1E86]

Lot of people in here don't understand what a bust is. I think the Cavs would have been thrilled to get him in 2013 instead of Bennet. Now THAT was a bust.

I’d rather have drafted Bennett. His losses were cut. Wiggins put up enough garbage empty stats that he got a franchise crippling contract.

[BR0D1E86]

Not a bust but not anything near a #1 pick and a max contract. He really needs to get past this shooting funk. .440 career average vs current average of .396. I don't know what happened to him last season; but something or someone got in his head and he has not been the same. Which was at least a 3rd or 4th scoring option on a good team.

He was never a third or fourth scoring option on a good team. He’s a below average nba scorer who’s horrific at everything else but still takes a ton of shots.

[ANTETOKOUNBROS]

I always thought his sky high potential was graded based on his raw physical prowess, mainly vertical leap. But I have always had reservations about his ball skills, court vision and basketball IQ. He's basically a guy who is supposed to be at minimum a 3 and D type. This way the NBA has changed has made things worse for him since he is not going to be a guy who will be a catch and shoot player, he wants to play iso in the post and that's not how scoring works anymore especially since his rookie year. He has not been adapting at all. I don't think he has regressed but it's more like he hasn't changed or improved at all in the kinds of things that matter in modern NBA offense all the while the NBA has changed very quickly. He either doesn't have the work ethic or bball IQ to turn it around. Either way, he will likely never come close to living up to the expectations of his contract.

[PZiv]

Ever since day 1 with Wiggins, I thought to myself oh okay hes young, prospects are just that - prospects, but in the same team you had Zach Lavine - player much more raw and unpolished, 2-3 years I found it dumbfounding how Zach kept improving his game and how much he oozes with potential and Wiggins sadly had none of that fire, his ceiling was still the topic, his defensive potential was still going to be sure thing.
Man its so dissapointing it all ended up with Wiggins getting that contract, whatever Minnesota could’ve had with KAT will be denied by this contract.

[Steven1562]

He's been a disappointment but hardly a bust. He's got all the physical tools but no fire to get everything he can out of those gifts. He's overpaid big time but that's not his fault.