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On Andrew Wiggins’ shot selection and limitations in Flip Saunders’ offense

By Ben Beecken

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Andrew Wiggins has played well of late. But he’s also shown just how misused he has been in Flip Saunders’ offense.

The number-one overall pick dropped in 27 points on 9 of 16 shooting, including a perfect 3 of 3 from long-range on Tuesday against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. On Friday night in Denver, Wiggins scored 22 points on 8 of 18 from the floor and 1 of 3 from beyond the arc. He also added a combined 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks between the two contests.

He may be turning the corner and figuring out how to be a more efficient scorer. After all, attempting 6 threes and 16 free throws over the two games is an encouraging sign.

But what to make of Wiggins’ season in total thus far? According to Basketball-Reference.com’s Win Shares metric, Wiggins has been the second-worst player in the NBA thus far (next to teammate and fellow rookie Zach LaVine), worth -.4 Wins to this point. He has a Win Shares Per 48 of -.025, and has had a clear negative impact on the Wolves when on the court.

The top reason for Wiggins’ shoddy numbers is shot selection, and in a related story, the way that Saunders has used his prize rookie within his offense.

We’ve seen a number of post-ups on the baseline and the low block from Wiggins, with varying degrees of success. Given his age and experience level, the beauty with which he releases his turnaround jumper from the post is incredible. It goes in sometimes, but it isn’t exactly a Kobe Bryant-level weapon in his arsenal. He’s had much more success spinning to either the middle or the baseline out of the post, using his athleticism to finish at the rim.

But calling for post-ups makes sense with Wiggins. He plays shooting guard more than half the time in the Wolves’ current lineup, and he’s often guarded by much smaller players. While shot selection out of post-ups is something to work on, it’s not why Wiggins has been inefficient across the board through the first 28 games of his NBA career.

Take a look at Wiggins’ shot breakdown: a staggering 28.2% of his attempts have come from 16 feet away from the basket or more but inside the arc. Not a good thing, but even worse, he’s shooting only 34.4% from that area of the floor.

Even more maddening is that he’s draining threes at a 41% clip, but he’s only attempting 1.4 of them per game. And it certainly doesn’t feel like a refusal to let it fly; Wiggins will shoot open threes in transition relatively seamlessly. In the Wolves’ half court offense, however, he hasn’t had plays run to free him from long-range. It’s post-ups or mid-range shots, and that’s that.

Wiggins attempts 27.9% of his shots within 3 feet of the rim, which is not bad. Two of the top four or five shooting guards in the NBA are James Harden and Wesley Matthews. Harden attempts 29.1% of his shots at the rim, and 36% from beyond the arc. Only 34.9% of his shots are from between 3 and 20 feet away from the rim. Matthews has shot just 13.9% of his attempts from within 3 feet, but a whopping 58.1% of his shots have come from three-point range.

As a result, Harden draws fouls at an insane rate, attempting .541 free throws per one field goal attempt over the course of his career. Matthews only shoots .273 free throws per field goal attempt for his career, and that number is only .173 so far this season.

Wiggins is currently closer to the Harden model in both his high volume of shots at the rim and free throw rate (Wiggins’ rate is .364 per field goal attempt). The big difference is that while Harden is jacking high-efficiency shots from outside the arc, Wiggins is attempting fall-aways and turnaround jumpers from mid-to-long-range but not the kind that is worth three points. If Wiggins could shift his mid-range shots to three-point range, he just might be in business.

Wiggins and Harden as a whole are very different players, but the rookie could learn a lot from Harden. The Houston Rockets have a number of sets designed to get Harden the ball in isolation at the top of the key, and in some iterations he simply catches and shoots from beyond the arc. Wiggins probably  has even more purely physical tools than Harden, but Saunders continues to insist to give Wiggins the ball on the wing or in the low post instead of outside the arc with endless possibilities to create efficient offense.

Here’s Wiggins’ heat map through the first 28 games, courtesy of NBAsavant.com:

You may have noticed the hot-spot in the left corner. Indeed, Wiggins is shooting 46.2% on corner threes.

The green between the free throw line and arc needs to dissipate and hopefully push into three-point range. The unnecessary amount of long twos is ultimately going to harm Wiggins’ development, as unless he actually turns into Kobe Bryant (highly, highly unlikely), those mid-range shots won’t open anything else up for him. Making threes (which he apparently can do) will open driving lanes, and getting to the basket will both add to Wiggins’ free throw totals and cause defenders to play a bit further back and let him shoot jumpers over them.

But Saunders is going to continue to run his offense, and especially without Ricky Rubio, it will continue to do poor Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, and others little good in both their long-term development and in win production during the 2014-15 season.

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