Best case and worst case.
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Wigs helped our program immensely. He just didn’t help our team as much as I would’ve liked. Can’t argue with the scoring average, though. To me, his goal was to dutifully fulfill his 1 year commitment, and he accomplished that. They don’t have Travis, Brady Morningstar, or even Withey’s picture up walking across the stage as the number 1 NBA pick, but they certainly have a huge picture of Wiggins walking across the stage as the number 1 pick in the NBA draft in the locker room. Now, that doesn’t mean nearly as much to a KU fan as it does to a KU recruit, but I think it means a lot.
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@KUSTEVE Travis and Withey! Bm, puke!
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You wrote…
So what?
Right now, we have Greene, White, and Svi – or we play smaller as Self says he prefers and Selden is more at home in the three spot. And as I saw someone post, where would Greene and White and CF be now if Wiggins never showed up, as far as development?
We have talked ad-nauseam about Green and White potential and so far it has been shown to be just that, potential. They were not able to break into the starting five or even get meaningful playing time and White pretty much was told that there would be little or no meaningful playing time coming, and no one here is anticipating Greene to start…and even the “meaningful minutes” part is iffy at best.
Yes, it is possible that they develop more had Wiggins not come to KU, but do you trade the year Wiggins had for a development year for White and Green with no assurance they will get any better that they are now? I don’t. The expression a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush seems appropriate. With the top player in his class, you are pretty much assured a better than average to superior player (Wiggins was indeed a superior player); however, with two players that were not able to get meaningful playing time…but with potential…you might get lucky and get decent players or more likely you get bupkis. Just sayin’
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@Crimsonorblue22 I don’t think it’s a slam of Wiggins at all. I really don’t. I just think the items I stated, that you cited, are just facts. I’m curious as to what you dispute in my observation. Better in a another system, soft/finesse, didn’t pass/create, or make others better.
Now, my speculation that we would have been better if Wiggins hadn’t signed … I certainly understand the counterpoint you, @Kip_McSmithers, @KUSTEVE and @JayHawkFanToo have offered. You just never know, though I think pure logic might be on your side.
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@HighEliteMajor well I disagree and it really doesn’t matter what I say, you are always right! Right? I will always be thrilled that wigs was a Jayhawk.
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@Kip_McSmithers If that worse case came true, I guess I’d become an even bigger Badger fan!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Nice response …
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“Wiggins set the freshman scoring record at KU (previously hed by Danny Manning), was one of the 10 finalist for player of the year and was the top defender on the team…how can that be a negative thing?”
I’m a big Wiggins fan and I’m glad he came to Kansas. We’ll reap the reward for years.
All I said was he thwarted development of other players because Wiggins had to carry the load while the others were mostly spectators. When Wiggins had the ball, everyone stopped playing and started watching. That is a big reason why Wiggins didn’t have more assists. No one was open!
All the returning players would have had to step up more if Wiggins wasn’t around last year. That would have put them a leg up on this year.
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@Kip_McSmithers Kip, nice analysis. That’s about how I see last season without Wiggins too. There was ZERO risk in having him on the that young team, or–frankly–any team, young or otherwise.
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@drgnslayr You said – “All I said was he thwarted development of other players because Wiggins had to carry the load while the others were mostly spectators. When Wiggins had the ball, everyone stopped playing and started watching.”
That is true.
Now, I wouldn’t say that other guys were never open … I know you’re trying to be kind to Mr. Wiggins. But this scene played out all season. I recall folks saying that Self wanted him to drive and get fouled. Sure. But I’m sure Self didn’t say, “Hey, Andrew, you know those guys that are open when you drive, the ones whose defenders collapse on you time and time again … don’t pass to them.”
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Good observation. I would counter that we knew going in that Wiggins was a finisher first and foremost. He never displayed great ball handling and passing skills as a prep player. He wasn’t Lebron. He was an athletic finisher on the wing. He wasn’t a drive and dish guy. He was a drive and dunk guy.
Becoming a distributor is about more than seeing guys open. In the freeze frame you have above it shows Wiggins drawing the collapse and having a wide open teammate on the baseline, hands ready for the dump off and dunk. But look at how Wiggins is holding the ball. He doesn’t have it in a position where he is ready to pass. He has it so that he can go up for a shot, which is what he does here. A natural distributor sees the action before it happens and knows that as the defense collapses to him, he will have a small pocket to throw a quick bounce pass into. In the freeze frame you have above, a distributor wouldn’t even have the ball at this moment. It would be bouncing up off the floor from that bounce pass and into the waiting hands of Embiid for the dunk.
Wiggins doesn’t see the floor like that yet. He sees the lane for the drive. He doesn’t see the pocket for the assist yet. That is the part of his game that has to improve.
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I agree with you guys… Wiggins was his own worst enemy because when you never feed out of the squeeze teams quickly learn that and feel more at ease to increase the squeeze.
We all remember that freeze frame and many complained that Wiggins didn’t pass it. That wasn’t really the typical situation when he got the ball. But other guys were open sometimes and if he had found a few of them perhaps more of them would have fought to get open when he drove the ball.
Hard to say if players just felt like coach wanted Wiggins to finish or they just knew Wiggins wasn’t going to pass out of it… whichever the case, the result was guys mostly watching him do his thing.
That part wasn’t good for any of those guys to learn… it is a fundamental breakdown of the team concept.
This year, every guy out there has to realize he is a potential scoring option, and everyone should look for the open guy. That’s what it is going to take to win.
“He wasn’t a drive and dish guy. He was a drive and dunk guy.”
I think that was Wiggins biggest problem. He accepted that role as the drive and dunk guy. He wasn’t even that. He became so cautious on his moves to the rack that he rarely finished. He should have got his first NBA lesson at Kansas… learn your spots on the floor, master them, run combinations through them, then over time add more spots.
I lost the link, but there is a great link I posted in here last year showing every NBA players plotted shooting spots on the floor. It is amazing to see how so many players cluster their shots on just a few spots.
Just about every time Wiggins drove the ball, it looked to be out of desperation and without ideas on how to finish out the drive. His anxiety got the best of him and made it appear that his ball handling skills were worse than they really were. He was not a great ball handler, but he was better than he showed.
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@drgnslayr “He accepted that role as the drive and dunk guy. He wasn’t even that. He became so cautious on his moves to the rack that he rarely finished.”
I don’t remember whether or not I commented on that in this forum or not, or if I just thought it - but towards the end of the season, after he drove and threw the ball away for the 250th time - I said " That dude must have the smallest hands of anyone in college ball" or something to that effect. I’m not trying to bash, but he did lose the ball - a lot.
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@HighEliteMajor I told you, you are always right!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Ah, quite clever; and did I tell ya that Self didn’t adjust vs. Stanford …
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Seemed like he had small hands, but it really was his anxiety that created most of those TOs where the ball slipped out.
If you look back at some of those plays pay close attention to Wig’s eyebrows. He was a very expressive player (with his face) and his eyebrows would pull up so high they almost touched his forehead hairline!
Wiggins is a super classy guy. He struggled a lot more at Kansas than people think because he masked things to keep everything positive… but he couldn’t hide the anxiety on his face when he attempted most of those drives.
I felt like we botched his development. He shouldn’t have tried to force everything right to the rim. He should have been pulling up more and tried to master a couple of spots on the floor. It would have relieved the pressure off him to perform and he would have ended up having more successful finishes at the rim. Parker was a lot more polished and he better utilized different places to score on the floor besides just at the rim.
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@drgnslayr damn, you need to be a d1 eyebrow reader, maybe even w/the NBA! And to think, we, KU, botched the #1 recruit’s development! Recruits should all be running away! Maybe these recruits could be developed on the team that hires you for eyebrow reading! How 'bout a place w/unibrow? Great test for your expertise?
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@HighEliteMajor and Embiid and shepherd…
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This post is deleted!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Here’s just one view from a scout regarding Wiggins and really the (common) belief that our system is a tight one, the entire link is below. The first paragraph is related to system. That’s not saying that a “system” approach is bad in trying to win games, though. It obviously isn’t. But it undeniably can impact the things kids can do on the floor. It’s a give and take.
Scout 3: In general, interesting kid. In fairness to him he played in a very restricted system at Kansas. All interchangeable parts with designated spots, a lot of structure. When he got the ball, there wasn’t a lot of room to create. He didn’t force things, dealt with it well, but sometimes it hurt his rep. Not anywhere near ready, mentally, to take things over, which is unfair to say at this stage. Game isn’t to the level of his athleticism. Humble, coachable, a positive kid, all good things.
Needs go-to moves. He doesn’t have them yet. He has a high dribble. This is normal for a kid his age. Even Kobe and T-Mac struggled out of high school with go-to moves.
He needs to add a whole bunch of other stuff to be the scorer people think he can be. He needs to forget shooting 3s. His shot isn’t great, but it isn’t broken. It’s not as bad as Kidd-Gilchrist where you say, “Where do we start?”
Great natural movement. An NBA coach can still play him right away because he can defend. He defends the wings in isolation, which is extremely valuable. Physically he can do this right away.
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@HighEliteMajor keep beating it-the horse that is! Wigs has moved on and so am I!
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"damn, you need to be a d1 eyebrow reader, maybe even w/the NBA! "
I kid you not, I used to do a Wiggins imitation driving to the hole with my eyebrows lifted as high as possible and my mouth open wide with a grimace pulling all the skin back on my face.
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@drgnslayr I definitely believe you!
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Pretty solid scouting report on Wigs. He’s not quite ready to take over the league… but if he stays healthy he’ll continue to improve and surely he’ll have the right people around to help him develop his offense. He does need the go-to moves… that is what I’ve been saying about him pinpointing a few good spots on the floor to make as his base scoring area.
Kobe was a good example. Then he nailed down both corners of the FT line and started ripping teams apart. He may be the right guy for Wigs to zone in on… especially how Kobe found the discipline to not try to take everything to the hole later on to save his body. Both of these guys have good verticals and Kobe learned not only to create scoring space on his J by using his body and quickness… sometimes he just flat out extended his vertical and shot over most of the league. That’s a tough thing to do… to extend to your highest vertical and hit shots. He also had one of the best fade-away J’s the league has ever seen. He earned a lot of trips to the FT line because defenders started expecting his fade-away and then he would change to a high vertical, catching the defender smacking all over his arms while he still went higher and hit the shot, too.
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@Crimsonorblue22 LOLOLOL…Mr Ed taking a snooze, perhaps?
