Andrew Wiggins ceiling

[Pelly24]

I think Wiggy is a case study in possibly overlooking basketball skills as "talent" rather than just physical gifts.

Wiggins is so damn athletic and is 6'9" and his jumper form looks good and his feet are like a dancers, but he's got no natural feel for the game, no instincts and his jumper has never been consistent. His touch is suspect. He doesn't understand defense. Has no natural court vision. He never looks fluid out there. Just a staggering lack of actual ball-playing ability. We always see these athletes and think, "Hey, we can teach them how to dribble and shoot" but 90% of the time you cannot. Wiggins never looked like a guard at any point he played.

[Warriors Analyst]

I think Wiggy is a case study in possibly overlooking basketball skills as "talent" rather than just physical gifts.

Wiggins is so damn athletic and is 6'9" and his jumper form looks good and his feet are like a dancers, but he's got no natural feel for the game, no instincts and his jumper has never been consistent. His touch is suspect. He doesn't understand defense. Has no natural court vision. He never looks fluid out there. Just a staggering lack of actual ball-playing ability. We always see these athletes and think, "Hey, we can teach them how to dribble and shoot" but 90% of the time you cannot. Wiggins never looked like a guard at any point he played.

I've talked about this exact thing in a few threads. The phrasing is really important! Skill needs to be developed. Skill is talent. Gifts are given, they are not talent and they are not skill.

I'm a Warriors fan and I've never liked Wiggins or players like him. So you can imagine how I reacted to the trade. Over the 12 games he played as a Warrior, I started to see the outlines of a useful player. He'll never be a superstar or a particularly efficient high volume scorer, but he'll probably stick around the league for 10-15 years by virtue of being that much more athletic than his peers. Jeff Green, Marvin Williams, Harrison Barnes, Vince Carter (who is obviously much better than the rest of the guys in this list), J.R. Smith, all those guys stuck around a long time because of their physical gifts. Athleticism lets you stay in the league a long time while your brain develops. So I think that's more or less Wiggins' long term career path.

This thread is pretty fascinating. Lots of people fell into the trap of thinking you can teach a once-in-a-generation athlete how to play. You can't. The pessimists definitely won here. They probably will win long term.

As a Warriors fan, my optimistic view of Wiggins is this: he's going to be play in a system predicated on movement and that will benefit him immensely. He's insanely quick on the first step, which kind of makes up for his stiff handle and inability to move defenders side-to-side. If he commits to moving off-ball, he's going to get lots of buckets as a cutter. He's also going to get the ball on the move a lot in the Warriors system and he's a much better passer than I anticipated. He'll be able to drive-and-kick effectively in the Warriors system, especially when he's surrounded by Steph/Klay and not Mychal Mulder/Damion Lee. He still looked pretty OK doing that with Lee and Mulder! I think he'll probably initiate a fair amount in the second unit where they'll surround him with shooters to make up for his poor shooting. He'll probably get a fair amount of looks in the post too, knowing Kerr. He wasn't terrible there. He did fadeaway every now and then, but not as much as Barnes did, and he was good at turning the shoulder into the middle.

I wasn't thrilled by Wiggins' aversion to defensive rebounding, but he was a pretty effective ball-hawk. Early career Klay wasn't a great off-ball defender so the Warriors stuck him on small guards to keep him engaged. I suspect Wiggins will play that role defensively for the Warriors as it will behoove them to save Klay's legs and have him bang against bigger wings. All of this assumes Wiggins will be engaged and play hard in the Warriors' system, which has obviously been a problem for him in Minnesota. I'm aware of that. I don't expect great things from him. But I think he can be useful if he shows up 75% of the time and commits to getting to the hoop as much as he can and irritating ball-handlers. My guess is he averages 18/5/5 next year on 56% TS. I don't trust his jumpshot. It knuckles off of his fingers, so I don't think he'll shoot more than 35% from three and 70% or so from line, but he shot 50% on 2's last year and 51% as a Warrior. I suspect that number will climb with more open driving lanes so I think that's where the efficiency uptick will come. Maybe 53% or so from 2.

That version of Wiggins is a weird mix of Tyreke Evans and Demar Derozan. Not my type of player by any means, but you can see the outline of how he'd be useful to the Warriors. If the Warriors do keep him through the end of his contract, that means we will get his pre-prime years. If he improves the shot, the stiff handle won't matter so much. That's a big if, but I guess if that happens the best case scenario of Wiggins is something like 25/5/7 on 60 TS%, super efficient at the rim, 37% or so from three. I don't think that'll happen, but that's my best case scenario for him.