Can Andrew Wiggins improve and save the Minnesota Timberwolves?

Andrew Wiggins came into the NBA with as much hype as anyone in recent memory. Now he’s virtually untradeable. Here’s why he’s the key to the Wolves future.

Heading into draft night in 2017, a little more than a year ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves were sitting in as enviable position as any team in the NBA.

Sure, the Golden State Warriors were in the midst of a dynasty, but if a casual observer was looking out onto the horizon, they would have been hard pressed to find a team that was a better bet to be the next big thing.

LeBron and the Cavs had given it their best shot and failed. Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons had played a combined 33 NBA games. The Boston Celtics were nothing more than a collection of interesting young pieces, with no Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward or Jason Tatum. Houston had no Chris Paul and just watched James Harden have an inexplicable end-of-series meltdown against the Spurs, who themselves were entering into uncharted waters with their franchise star. OKC had yet to trade for Paul George.

The Wolves, meanwhile, were sitting on a gold mine. For starters, they had Karl-Anthony Towns, who finished first in the 2016 survey of general managers who were asked to pick which NBA player they would select first if they were starting a team from scratch (he would win again the following year). They also had a proven coach in Tom Thibodeau, a mountain of cap space (soon to be used on Jeff Teague) and the seventh pick in a stacked draft that, along with Kris Dunn and Zach LaVine, would become Jimmy Butler by the end of the night.

The real wild card, though — the player who, in the 2015 GM survey, finished first in the “player most likely to have a breakout season” category, one spot ahead of lanky bundle of arms and legs from Milwaukee named Giannis Antetokounmpo — was Andrew Wiggins. When that vote was taken, the former number one overall pick had just come off a Rookie of the Year campaign in which he became the third teenager ever (after LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony) to average 16 points, four rebounds, two assists and one steal per game, according to Basketball-Reference.com.

His second and third seasons on their face, were improvements, albeit not significant ones. Wiggins scoring average went from 16.7 during his rookie year to 20.7 and then 23.6 in 2016-17, good enough for 16th in the league. He also went from shooting 3-pointers at a 31 percent clip on 1.5 attempts per game as a rookie to 35.6 percent on 3.5 attempts in his third season. His defense remained a significant liability but at only 22 years old with all the necessary tools, the Wolves were hopeful enough to give Wiggins a max extension a year before he entered restricted free agency.

Over the course of the last year since making the deal for Butler and subsequently extending Wiggins, things have gone off the rails. Jimmy Buckets, after a year with his new team, is apparently frustrated with the lack of work ethic displayed by his teammates and just turned down a nine-figure contract extension (albeit one that couldn’t pay him as much as what he figures to earn next summer). Towns has not leaked any such discontent, but has at the very least made some questionable outfit decisions of late. Thibs, after years of being viewed as a defensive savant, just presided over the 22nd ranked defense in the league…and that was an improvement over his first year coaching the team.

And then there is Wiggins. Even compared to the goings on around him, no player has altered Minnesota’s long-term expectations for the worse more than the former number one overall pick from Kansas.

As expected, with Butler aboard, much of the offensive load was taken off Wiggins shoulders last year. His usage rate declined from 29.0 to 23.4, which is barely above the 22.6 he hit as a rookie. This obviously meant that he shot it less (from 19.1 field goal attempts per game in 2016-17 to 15.9) although, perhaps predictably, more opportunities opened up from the outside, as his 3-point attempts reached a career high of 338.

All of that would have been fine…if it came with a significant uptick in efficiency. In 2016-17, of the 45 players with a usage rate over 25 who appeared in at least 50 games, Wiggins 53.4 true shooting percentage ranked 35th. Last season, less should have equated to more.

It didn’t. His true shooting percentage plummeted to 50.5 last year, including 33.1 percent from downtown, despite the fact that almost all of Wiggins 3-point attempts were either of the open or wide open variety. According to Cleaning the Glass, thanks in part to Wiggins subpar deep ball, his 101.1 points per 100 shot attempts put him in just the 24th percentile of wings in the NBA.

And the offensive end is perceived to be Wiggins better half of the court. Again via CTG, when Wiggins was on the court, the Wolves gave up 110.8 points per 100 possessions — bad but not atrocious. However, during the 2460 possessions Wiggins played without Butler, that number rose to a Doug Moe-in-Denver-esqe 118.1.

Add it all up, and this level of production doesn’t seem close to being worth the $146.5 million the Wolves will be paying him over five years — an extension that won’t even kick in until this season.

The obvious question is whether Wiggins can reverse the trend and continue the progress he seemed to be making before he signed a nine-figure deal. For starters, he’ll need to stop relying on one of the more inefficient shots in basketball: the mid-range J. For the fourth year in a row, nearly half of his shot attempts came from this area of the floor despite the fact that he has yet to make them at even a league-average rate.

Even this might not be a cure-all though. In 2016-17, 30 percent of Wiggins looks were long 2s while just 16 percent came from behind the arc. Last season, those numbers were equal at 24 percent, yet his efficiency was still disastrous. Unless he eventually becomes at least a league average 3-point shooter, it’s tough to see a path for Wiggins to become an above average starter, let alone a star.

In the interim, he would do well to drive the basket a bit more. Last season, only 29 percent of his shots came at the rim, which was well below his career average. Wiggins has always been an above average finisher at close range (not a surprise given his athleticism), but that paled in comparison to the one thing he truly excelled at upon entering the league: drawing fouls.

Over his first two seasons, Wiggins drew fouls on over 17 percent of his shot attempts, which was among the top five percent of wings for both seasons. His third year, that went down to 14.6 percent, and then last season it plummeted to 10.3 percent. There’s no reasonable explanation, other than the fact that Wiggins may simply be suffering from a crisis of confidence. In addition to his 3-point accuracy taking a dip, Wiggins only shot 64.5 percent at the line last year after shooting almost exactly 76 percent for three straight seasons.

If nothing else, it seems like the acquisition of Jimmy Butler — someone who was supposed to lead by example and help mold Wiggins in his own image — hasn’t worked out as planned. If Butler’s gripes are to be believed, Wiggins’ work ethic may be a culprit here as well.

Next: Is the Spurs mystique gone for good? Was it ever real?

Whatever it is, the Wolves had better figure out a solution. After last season, despite his prestigious pedigree, Wiggins is virtually untradeable on his new contract. If anything, Minnesota might be able to find a team willing to take him as a salary dump, but that’s about it. Even if such a move were to convince Jimmy Butler to stick around, with no discernible cap room in the near future, the Wolves would likely be stuck in 45-50 win purgatory, and that’s if Towns makes good on his own otherworldly talents.

On the other hand, if Butler leaves, Minnesota will have to pin any hopes it still has of a return to prominence on the skinny shoulders of a kid who thus far hasn’t shown himself to be up to the task.

The Wolves may just be the latest reminder that in the NBA, life comes at you fast. Minnesota better hope Andrew Wiggins is doing more than standing around admiring the scenery. Their future likely depends on it.