Minnesota Timberwolves: On Andrew Wiggins’ improved play

This season has not gone in the right direction for the Minnesota Timberwolves or Andrew Wiggins, but he has picked up his play as of late.

Andrew Wiggins and the Minnesota Timberwolves are going to want to put this season behind them and look toward the future.

After making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years in 2018, the Wolves will find themselves in the all so familiar spot come May of 2019: the NBA Draft Lottery.

The former No. 1-overall pick has regressed over the course of the last two seasons. After progressing to future stardom following his third year, the forward found himself unable to find any sort of a rhythm after trading for Jimmy Butler.

Even though the team has spent the majority of the season outside of Butler’s shadow, Wiggins was unable to get going. Receiving two key players in Robert Covington and Dario Saric appeared to be nice complementary pieces around Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns, but an injury to Covington and inconsistency from Saric has changed things somewhat.

There are many good things to say about the dominant Towns, of course,, but Minnesota’s future outlook (still) largely hinges on the development of Wiggins. This season, he’s averaging 17.7 points, 4.8 points, 2.4 assists and 1.0 steals per game — numbers that aren’t all that different from last season, including an identical scoring average.

The Timberwolves are officially eliminated from the playoffs and have been ravaged by injuries. For the casual watcher, it’s hard to find reasons to watch them at this point in the season. However, Wiggins has improved over the last handful of games and that’s something to keep an eye on heading into the 2019-20 season.

In the last four games, he’s averaging 21 points, five rebounds, three assists, and one steal per game. Granted, it’s easy to say that he needs to be doing more, especially since the team is 1-3 in those games, but looking at the positive, the former Kansas Jayhawk has been playing consistently well.

It’s good to see his scoring total in the 20s again, as well as seeing him grabbing more than four rebounds and one or two assists per contest. The biggest thing during this four-game stretch has been his efficiency. It’s no secret that he needs to be more consistent shooting the ball, but he has been a lot better as of late.

In those games, he’s shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from 3-point range. The shooting from distance needs to be better, but you take the good with the bad, and the good that he’s shooting nearly 50 percent from the field.

This needs to happen regularly, but it’s a good sign to see. He’s been driving to the rim a lot more lately, which is where he’s most effective. Ryan Saunders has noticed his aggression lately as well.

As the season winds down, Minnesota will need to take a good look at the pieces on the team and evaluate what they’ll need to do heading into next year. It’s an important offseason, with the possibility of a new head coach and general manager come fall.

The team will also have some free agents and will need to assess whether they’ll bring them back. It’s a big offseason after a disappointing season, but right now, Wiggins is playing better and it’s something to keep an eye on as the season winds down.