The Minnesota Timberwolves misuse of Andrew Wiggins

The young ‘hopeful’ star of Minneapolis has negatively performed down-the-stretch for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Andrew Wiggins has been infamously underwhelming in his 2017-18 regular season campaign. Although, Wiggins has a chance to rewrite that history; hoping to perform at the highest level in the playoffs. Unfortunately, he isn’t even performing on an average NBA level for a starting forward.

The Minnesota Timberwolves look to clinch a seed in the playoffs – for the first time in 13 seasons – this Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets, and they aren’t getting a lot of help from their max-contract player. You may think we are being hyperbolic, and that it may be possible that Wiggins could be going through growing pains now that Jimmy Butler is back in the lineup. That’s plausible, but the substantial amount of evidence has stacked against Wiggins and his horrid play as-of-late.

Andrew Wiggins is close to having the worst season of his four-year career, and quite possibly his worst stretch of games in his career.

What is the cause of ‘bad’ Andrew Wiggins?

The statistics

To better understand Wiggins and his poor play, statistics and his lack of offensive ability down the regular season stretch will help further our point. There are three separate stat lines to look at:

• 2017-18 regular season – 17.7 PPG, 43.7 FG percentage, and 32.7 percent from three.
• Last ten games – 15.7 PPG, 38.7 FG percentage, and 31.6 percent from three.
• Last five games -12.4 PPG, 32.9 FG percentage, and 23.1 percent from three.

Wiggins has made 21 out of his last 85 shots from the field in his past five games, which is a startling statistic. Three of those games were played against opponents with losing records – unfortunately being the Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks, and the Los Angeles Lakers.

While some could look at that as a fluke, Wiggins statistics against the other two opponents happened to be two teams fighting for a playoff spot, just like the Timberwolves. The Denver Nuggets and the Utah Jazz both held Wiggins to a totaled poor performance and he was unable to lead them to playoff clinching wins.

There may be greater problems for Wiggins in Minnesota than just his poor play down the stretch of the regular season.

Playing the wrong position adds inefficiency and fatigue

Andrew Wiggins ended his college career switching between the guard and forward position with Kansas. Unfortunately for Wiggins, that end came quickly with a third round loss in the NCAA tournament to Stanford, only scoring 4 points while shooting 1-6, all in 34 minutes of playing time. Guarded extremely well by-the-now, Oklahoma City Thunder’s defensive prospect, Josh Huestis.

Going off of Wiggins poor play at the forward position in college, there are glaring statistics showing the obvious difference of Wiggins at the shooting guard position, compared to the forward.

Totals at guard for Timberwolves:

• 90 games – 18.4 PPG, 47.0 FG percentage, and 35.3 percent from three

Totals at forward for Timberwolves:

• 244 games – 16.9 PPG, 44.0 FG percentage, and 32.2 percent from three

Next: Timberwolves road to the playoffs

Defensively, Wiggins frame of 6’8 and weighing in at 210 pounds, gives him the advantage over any NBA guard. Although, Jimmy Butler may be the guard of the foreseeable future for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but Andrew Wiggins is the future – barring trade – so expect a position change or a style change for Wiggins.

That is not the type of conversation you want to have about a ‘star’ player when trying to head into the playoffs.