Let’s be honest: Andrew Wiggins is having a terrible week.
It all started when his brother tweeted “Hallelujah” after news broke on Tuesday that Jimmy Butler wants to be traded out of Minnesota. The domino effect since the tweet has been staggering.
Here’s the list of bad things that have happened since.
- Butler put a video on Instagram firing back, saying “keep that same energy.”
- Former NBA bad ass Stephen Jackson mocked Wiggins for his lack of heart.
- Wiggins responded by calling Jackson a “bum ass.”
- Jackson fired back, essentially threatening to harm Wiggins.
- NBA commentators starting hyper-analyzing Wiggins’ career, which has led to some really harsh opinions.
ESPN’s Bomani Jones called Wiggins one of the worst No. 1 draft picks of the last 20 years, saying only Anthony Bennett, Michael Olowokandi and Kwame Brown have been more disappointing.
Andrew Wiggins going after Stephen Jackson, a legit badass, is just another case of his poor shot selection
— Daman Rangoola (@damanr) September 20, 2018
But worse than all of that (unless Jackson literally rolls up on him in traffic) is the scathing review written by ESPN’s Zach Lowe, one of the most respected NBA writers in the business.
“What if Wiggins is just, like, not good?” Lowe writes, then backing up a comment about Wiggins playing with the “enthusiasm of a teenager asked to rake leaves” with real data.
“Motion-tracking cameras recorded Wiggins “running fast” during only 4.8 percent of his time on the floor, one of the 10 lowest such figures in the league, per Second Spectrum. (Almost everyone in his slowpoke vicinity is a plodding 7-footer.)”
The motion-tracking data screams lazy, but then again, Wiggins is still just 23 years old and has the freakish athletic ability and natural skill that could turn him into so much more than he’s been.
Either way, the “Hallelujah” tweet from his brother has suddenly put more pressure than ever on Wiggins, quite simply because the whole world will be watching rather than looking at Minnesota as flyover country.
