NBA Draft: 30 Worst No. 1 overall picks in league history (Updated 2023)

30 worst No. 1 overall picks in league history: 18. Andrew Wiggins

Stats:

• 19.1 points
• 4.5 rebounds

We come to our first active player on this list, and one of just two total, which means Andrew Wiggins has a chance to play his way down this list. As a product of the modern NBA Draft, Wiggins did not rack up career accolades in college to earn his top pick status but rather went one-and-done at Kansas.

The Cleveland Cavaliers took the Canadian wing first overall in the 2014 NBA Draft, then sent him to the Minnesota Timberwolves as part of a trade for All-Star big man Kevin Love to pair with the newly signed LeBron James. Wiggins then played 5.5 seasons with the Timberwolves alongside another first overall pick in Karl-Anthony Towns.

Wiggins was and is a natural scorer, even if he isn’t a highly efficient one. He has a career scoring average of 19.1 points, going as high as 23.6 per game in 2016-17. During his time in Minnesota that was very nearly all he brought to the table, as a combination of his effort and the system around him resulted in poor defensive play.

To his credit, he has morphed from an “inefficient wannabe first option” into a high-end role player who has improved his efficiency significantly and plays excellent defense on the wing. In his most recent season, his first full one with the Golden State Warriors, Wiggins set a career-high in effective field goal percentage (54.3 percent; his previous best was 50.4).

In his first full season with the Golden State Warriors in 2020-21, Wiggins set a career-high in effective field goal percentage (54.3 percent; his previous best was 50.4.

(Updated): Wiggins has only improved from there, sharpening his outside shot and coming up in some big moments for the Warriors. He was arguably their second-best player in 2021-22 as the Warriors won the championship. His career and game have been helped by playing on a good team and learning from future Hall of Famers.

Should have picked: Joel Embiid (3rd); Nikola Jokic (41st); Clint Capela (25th); Zach LaVine (13th)