Andrew Wiggins owns CP3 with the Penny Hardaway step back.

[bbalnation]

Can’t speak to Siakam, but Wiggins won’t be able to make the leap because of his loose handles and average jumper. Siakam still has that upside from what I’ve seen

When teams can use either as a role player, that’s a great situation for both parties

Hm. Siakam already made a leap to me. Hes a star when he's healthy and he's in the right environment (ie as a secondary or third option). The Raps made the playoffs the season after Kawhi, led by Kyle and him. He won a championship in 2019, as a third option, putting up 1 huge game statistically in every playoff series (including the finals) while playing solid defense throughout.

He could make another one to be a first option. But maybe my expectations of leaps are different.

And this is where the subjectivity comes in, because everyone defines 'star' and 'role player' differently.. my guess is we probably think the exact same of Siakam but have different parameters for those words. Like for example, when I think of star, I'm thinking of a top 15-20 player, and I think Siakam is right on that fringe when healthy. He's definitely better than Wiggins, but I'd have them both, at opposite ends, in that 'upper echelon role player' tier, with Siakam knocking at the door of moving up and Wiggins just gaining entry at the bottom

There are 30 teams in the NBA. 16 are playoff teams. In order to win you usually need 2-3 really great players playing together on 1 team. This year, despite all the injuries and people not playing, there could be 5-8+ teams who could win.

A star is only a star if they're a top 15-20 player for you. Gotcha.

[FNQ]

Hm. Siakam already made a leap to me. Hes a star when he's healthy and he's in the right environment (ie as a secondary or third option). The Raps made the playoffs the season after Kawhi, led by Kyle and him. He won a championship in 2019, as a third option, putting up 1 huge game statistically in every playoff series (including the finals) while playing solid defense throughout.

He could make another one to be a first option. But maybe my expectations of leaps are different.

And this is where the subjectivity comes in, because everyone defines 'star' and 'role player' differently.. my guess is we probably think the exact same of Siakam but have different parameters for those words. Like for example, when I think of star, I'm thinking of a top 15-20 player, and I think Siakam is right on that fringe when healthy. He's definitely better than Wiggins, but I'd have them both, at opposite ends, in that 'upper echelon role player' tier, with Siakam knocking at the door of moving up and Wiggins just gaining entry at the bottom

There are 30 teams in the NBA. In order to win you usually need 2-3 really great players playing together on 1 team.

A star is only a star if they're a top 15-20 player for you. Gotcha.

Or you can take offense to subjective terminology? Definitely an option, although it seems like pissing upwind

[vagelis]

Andrew Wiggins is a black hole who will never ever contribute to winning basketball.

Anybody who ever said this was not to be taken seriously. But it still speaks volume that Wiggins is the #1 overall pick, got traded by the team that drafted him, and probably can't be the 2nd best player on a team that is a contender.

It's great that players like Wiggins and Bogut become good serviceable players but still disappointing that they couldn't change the fortunes of the teams that drafted them overall #1.

On the flip side, Wiggins is unique because its rare that #1 overall draft who are guards or wings don't become high end scoring options. Fultz is the only other one in recent memory, and that situation was pretty unique. But if you throw him out, how many other PG/SG/SF drafted #1 didnt ever become a legitimate top option on an (at least) good team? Last one I can remember is probably John Lucas

Yes, so many similarities between Wiggins and Fultz.

Wiggins with 10672 career points
Fultz with 1228 career points as many as Wiggins scores in a bad season(Wiggins has scored 1933 points in a single season).

Wiggins has still scored the most points between the players who have been drafted from his draft class(2014) and the next ones.
The next one is Devin Booker from the 2015 draft class with 9883 points.
Jokic is second from 2014 draft class with 8800 career points

https://www.nba.com/stats/alltime-leaders/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&ActiveFlag=Yes

You have to realize that the current situation is not representative for Wiggins scoring ability.
He plays for a team who has Curry, one of the best offensive players of all time.
So, his role is lesser than it could be for maybe any other team in NBA.

[michaelm]

Andrew Wiggins is a black hole who will never ever contribute to winning basketball.

Anybody who ever said this was not to be taken seriously. But it still speaks volume that Wiggins is the #1 overall pick, got traded by the team that drafted him, and probably can't be the 2nd best player on a team that is a contender.

It's great that players like Wiggins and Bogut become good serviceable players but still disappointing that they couldn't change the fortunes of the teams that drafted them overall #1.

Bit tough on Bogut. He was a 16:10 guy and trending up in the "fear the deer " year to which he was a strong contributor before he got undercut dunking and shattered the elbow on his shooting arm, and then had to re-invent himself to be a serviceable player. Even so so he had a strong initial impact on the defensive identity of the recent successful GSW team, with Draymond Green crediting him for contributing to his development to this day. I tend to agree with someone who said years ago that you only had to watch his lack of fluidity moving up and down the court to suspect he would be injury prone in general, but the elbow thing was an absolutely freak accident the like of which hasn't occurred otherwise in several decades to my knowledge. Even if he had not been undercut by Amare Stoudemire I agree he wasn't going to be a generational player like Giannis who was not even a top 10 draft pick himself though,

[FNQ]

Anybody who ever said this was not to be taken seriously. But it still speaks volume that Wiggins is the #1 overall pick, got traded by the team that drafted him, and probably can't be the 2nd best player on a team that is a contender.

It's great that players like Wiggins and Bogut become good serviceable players but still disappointing that they couldn't change the fortunes of the teams that drafted them overall #1.

On the flip side, Wiggins is unique because its rare that #1 overall draft who are guards or wings don't become high end scoring options. Fultz is the only other one in recent memory, and that situation was pretty unique. But if you throw him out, how many other PG/SG/SF drafted #1 didnt ever become a legitimate top option on an (at least) good team? Last one I can remember is probably John Lucas

Yes, so many similarities between Wiggins and Fultz.

Wiggins with 10672 career points
Fultz with 1228 career points as many as Wiggins scores in a bad season(Wiggins has scored 1933 points in a single season).

Wiggins has still scored the most points between the players who have been drafted from his draft class(2014) and the next ones.
The next one is Devin Booker from the 2015 draft class with 9883 points.
Jokic is second from 2014 draft class with 8800 career points

https://www.nba.com/stats/alltime-leaders/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&ActiveFlag=Yes

You have to realize that the current situation is not representative for Wiggins scoring ability.
He plays for a team who has Curry, one of the best offensive players of all time.
So, his role is lesser than it could be for maybe any other team in NBA.

Yes, we've seen what Wiggins' scoring ability when he plays with a greater role, or when opposing defenses can key in on him.

I actually only compared one similarity, which is both of them being the only Guard/Wings drafted #1 overall in the past 45 years that haven't been clear top 2 options on winning teams, because that's extremely rare.

Wiggins has tons of volume, because he was miscast as a top 2 scoring option and his poor metrics and his team's poor record clearly show that. He was considered a bust because of that, and the Warriors have started repairing that label by making him a role player who can focus on what he does well, which is on-ball defense and being a tertiary scoring option, and limiting his touches per minute (1.416), which is dead last among our starters (Looney is at 1.582) and only ahead of Damian Lee (1.406), GP2 (1.245), and Moses Moody (0.949) - and Moody's out of the rotation.

Literally the reason he's doing better is we dont have him making decisions often. When he's 11th out of 14 in terms of how often he touches the ball, and that has spiked his efficiency after years of having more touches = more inefficiency, its not a good hypothetical to wonder how he'd do on a team that gave him more touches.

So I guess I agree that Warriors Wiggins is not representative of Wiggins' average scoring ability, but the data points in the opposite direction of what you are implying

[bbalnation]

On the flip side, Wiggins is unique because its rare that #1 overall draft who are guards or wings don't become high end scoring options. Fultz is the only other one in recent memory, and that situation was pretty unique. But if you throw him out, how many other PG/SG/SF drafted #1 didnt ever become a legitimate top option on an (at least) good team? Last one I can remember is probably John Lucas

Yes, so many similarities between Wiggins and Fultz.

Wiggins with 10672 career points
Fultz with 1228 career points as many as Wiggins scores in a bad season(Wiggins has scored 1933 points in a single season).

Wiggins has still scored the most points between the players who have been drafted from his draft class(2014) and the next ones.
The next one is Devin Booker from the 2015 draft class with 9883 points.
Jokic is second from 2014 draft class with 8800 career points

https://www.nba.com/stats/alltime-leaders/?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&ActiveFlag=Yes

You have to realize that the current situation is not representative for Wiggins scoring ability.
He plays for a team who has Curry, one of the best offensive players of all time.
So, his role is lesser than it could be for maybe any other team in NBA.

Yes, we've seen what Wiggins' scoring ability when he plays with a greater role, or when opposing defenses can key in on him.

I actually only compared one similarity, which is both of them being the only Guard/Wings drafted #1 overall in the past 45 years that haven't been clear top 2 options on winning teams, because that's extremely rare.

Wiggins has tons of volume, because he was miscast as a top 2 scoring option and his poor metrics and his team's poor record clearly show that. He was considered a bust because of that, and the Warriors have started repairing that label by making him a role player who can focus on what he does well, which is on-ball defense and being a tertiary scoring option, and limiting his touches per minute (1.416), which is dead last among our starters (Looney is at 1.582) and only ahead of Damian Lee (1.406), GP2 (1.245), and Moses Moody (0.949) - and Moody's out of the rotation.

Literally the reason he's doing better is we dont have him making decisions often. When he's 11th out of 14 in terms of how often he touches the ball, and that has spiked his efficiency after years of having more touches = more inefficiency, its not a good hypothetical to wonder how he'd do on a team that gave him more touches.

So I guess I agree that Warriors Wiggins is not representative of Wiggins' average scoring ability, but the data points in the opposite direction of what you are implying

Theres gotta be a stat somewhere that shows that he makes a lot of those decisions in isolation plays (1 on 1), where hes forced to go out there and create a bucket for himself. That's a different type of touch (stat) than Looney, or Green bringing it up, or others. Indeed, I dont disagree that limiting his decision making is best for the team, in certain situations.

In other situations, where other players in the league struggle and therefore its a commodity in the league, hes a rising isolation player (who can play both sides). I say that with confidence because I dont imagine the Warriors staff and players being too pleased with him taking up iso plays (whether mid or end of shot clock), especially if he's out there spinning around, unless he's doing it at a decent clip.

And his splits are solid enough for me to assume that he's doing the isolation plays at an efficiency thats okay too, or at least somewhat rising (assumption). Theres an advanced stat that supports or negates this. I'm curious how often, as I said, especially relative to other Warriors players, and then the rest of the league.