NBA coach’s assessment of Andrew Wiggins is a little savage, totally spot-on

Andrew Wiggins is a talented enigma, but one NBA coach’s assessment of his shot selection is spot on.

Amid all the Jimmy Butler drama with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and whatever more prominent part Karl-Anthony Towns has played in it, Andrew Wiggins has fallen below the radar this offseason. But the 2014 No. 1 overall pick is starting a five-year max contract this year, and the spotlight should be back on him quickly if or when Butler is traded.

Going back to his lone season at Kansas, Wiggins comes off as disengaged and indifferent on the floor. Wiggins set a career-high by accounting for 1.6 Defensive Win Shares last year (via Basketball Reference), but he offset that and then some with a nearly six-point drop-off in scoring from 2016-17 (17.7 per game) and shooting percentages that dropped across the board.

The Timberwolves are lagging behind in the movement NBA offense has taken, with the fewest 3-point attempts in the league in each of the last two seasons. Towns is the team’s best 3-point shooter (42.1 percent last year), but Wiggins was the team leader in attempts last year (4.1 per game) as he converted just 33.1 percent from beyond the arc.

Sporting News is rolling out their Top 100 players for the 2018-19 NBA season. Wiggins comes in a No. 70. But an anonymous NBA coach’s assessment of Wiggins could not be more spot-on.

"He is one of the better finishers in the league at his position, but he just did not go to the rim very much. And really, we used to be OK with him going to the rim because he would sometimes attack without a plan, but he is so gifted that he could still make a play, even without knowing what he was going to do. But someone told him he is a 3-point shooter, I guess, and that is great for you if you’re trying to defend them. You want him taking all the 3s he wants."

Wiggins indeed should be an elite finisher among NBA wing players. The idea about not getting to the rim very much is backed up by data, with just 22.9 percent of his shot attempts coming within three feet of the basket last year. By comparison, 26 percent of field goal attempts were from 3-point range. Push that into 16-plus feet way, and 45.5 percent of Wiggins’ shot attempts last year were either long-twos or three-pointers. We know his rate from beyond the arc (33.1 percent) in 2017-18, but Wiggins also converted just 32 percent of his “long twos” last year

Making roughly one-third of the shots that account for close to half of your total shot attempts is not an efficient formula, to say the least. It’s not news that Wiggins is a poster boy for inefficiency, and he doesn’t create for others when his shot isn’t falling. But an opposing coach has now put public words to what the game plan for defending him is.