Minnesota Timberwolves: 2017-18 NBA season preview
Storyline 1: Is Andrew Wiggins a max player?
The Minnesota Timberwolves traded their only star since Kevin Garnett in the summer of 2014, recognizing that it was time to stop treading water and truly tear down to rebuild. Kevin Love was sent to the Cleveland Cavaliers to join newly-signed LeBron James, and in return the Timberwolves received a package centered around Andrew Wiggins.
As the top pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Wiggins’ career was projected to reach the stars. Three seasons in, it’s possible to look at his production and conclude that he has both delivered on that expectation, and fallen well short. As part of Minnesota’s young threesome, Wiggins broke 20 points per game in just his second season, and last year averaged 23.6 points every contest.
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The ability to generate offense and create shots is valuable, and Wiggins has shown he can do that. But defensively last year he failed to be the wing stopper many projected he would be. One year after he was picked to be the next Jimmy Butler, Thibodeau traded for the original Butler to become the team’s lockdown wing defender.
Wiggins’ supporters will point out that he is just 22 years old, with plenty of time to develop. That is absolutely true, and he has all of the athletic tools to build on to become a dynamic two-way player. Freed from guarding the opposition’s best perimeter player, Wiggins is now set up to flourish with less defensive expectations.
His detractors will point to a complete lack of history of Wiggins ever being a positive defensive presence — all he has brought is potential throughout his collegiate and professional career. Without an elite setup man in Ricky Rubio, will Wiggins become even more inefficient than he was last season?
The team will most likely sign Wiggins to a maximum contract extension by the time the season begins. But they will do so acting on faith he will be such a player, not with evidence that he already is.