Lakers at Golden State

[cpower]

Except Wiggins had a rib or rib cartilage injury, something very recoverable without long term effects on his athleticism, and 28 or 29 is significantly younger than 34. At Klay's age and with among the two worst injuries for a basketball player there is not much chance of him regaining his former athleticism and iron man endurance 2 years into his return. Wiggins was also playing excellently early last season before whatever his problems were. I guess it is fair to question how reliable his motivation is, particularly after whatever went on last year, but I don't think he can be blamed for being physically under-prepared at the start of this season after Lebron broke his rib while he was playing for GSW against the Lakers in a play-off game.

Someone on GSOM put it best imo, when Wiggins was playing badly he wouldn't have brought anything worthwhile in trade, if he returned to his best you wouldn't want to trade him, pretty much my attitude. I myself expected him to recover, if not as soon as he has given his trouble keeping weight on at the best of times.

People don't realize that Wiggins is too good to be written off.
I read so many times during the years that Wiggins is a bust, worst contract in the league etc.

And Wiggins responds.
ROY, 24 ppg season, max extension, trade to Warriors, All star starter, 2d best player of a champion team.
I never write him off.
He is a weird personality and his career is not near his talent but his talent is too big to take his bad perforformance periods as normal

And take into consideration that Warriors do not set plays for Wiggins in order to score.
They set plays for Thompson, Kuminga, Podjemski but they let Wiggins score only when the ball (accidentaly) comes to him.

They run post ups for him as well as head tap. Wiggins is a limited scorer, which is fine because he’s an amazing defender.

Wiggins was bad because they asked him to do something he is not good at ,which is driving and creating. He is a limited offensive player and asking to do all these things made him unplayable. This is a lot of Kerr's fault

[vagelis]

People don't realize that Wiggins is too good to be written off.
I read so many times during the years that Wiggins is a bust, worst contract in the league etc.

And Wiggins responds.
ROY, 24 ppg season, max extension, trade to Warriors, All star starter, 2d best player of a champion team.
I never write him off.
He is a weird personality and his career is not near his talent but his talent is too big to take his bad perforformance periods as normal

And take into consideration that Warriors do not set plays for Wiggins in order to score.
They set plays for Thompson, Kuminga, Podjemski but they let Wiggins score only when the ball (accidentaly) comes to him.

They run post ups for him as well as head tap. Wiggins is a limited scorer, which is fine because he’s an amazing defender.

Wiggins was bad because they asked him to do something he is not good at ,which is driving and creating. He is a limited offensive player and asking to do all these things made him unplayable. This is a lot of Kerr's fault

So, you are not aware that he was injured in summer.
When exactly Warriors asked him to drive and create?

[cpower]

They run post ups for him as well as head tap. Wiggins is a limited scorer, which is fine because he’s an amazing defender.

Wiggins was bad because they asked him to do something he is not good at ,which is driving and creating. He is a limited offensive player and asking to do all these things made him unplayable. This is a lot of Kerr's fault

So, you are not aware that he was injured in summer.
When exactly Warriors asked him to drive and create?

look at these TOs

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202311110GSW.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202311140GSW.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202312080OKC.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202312120PHO.html

[DonaldSanders]

I like what I saw out of Klay. He played within the offense and only shot when we needed him to shoot.

Yeah in terms of a bad Klay game, hopefully this is the new floor. Poor shooting but he didn't hunt a bunch and was looking for others. Maybe this will force Steve to play TJD because you got more of the 'good Klay' when he was out there. I also think having an athlete like TJD helps make up for Klay being slower, where with Looney out there with him it's a bit rough.

I also thought Klay did a surprisingly decent job when he defended Anthony Davis, bothered him enough that help had time to arrive a few times. Moody also had some beast rebounds & box outs.

[ILOVEIT]

This game tells me how fricken amazing LeBron is. 39 and the guy still drags teams along.

[KevinMcreynolds]

This game tells me how fricken amazing LeBron is. 39 and the guy still drags teams along.

naw, he trash

[Coxy]

This game tells me how fricken amazing LeBron is. 39 and the guy still drags teams along.

PED's are amazing.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

People don't realize that Wiggins is too good to be written off.
I read so many times during the years that Wiggins is a bust, worst contract in the league etc.

And Wiggins responds.
ROY, 24 ppg season, max extension, trade to Warriors, All star starter, 2d best player of a champion team.
I never write him off.
He is a weird personality and his career is not near his talent but his talent is too big to take his bad perforformance periods as normal

And take into consideration that Warriors do not set plays for Wiggins in order to score.
They set plays for Thompson, Kuminga, Podjemski but they let Wiggins score only when the ball (accidentaly) comes to him.

They run post ups for him as well as head tap. Wiggins is a limited scorer, which is fine because he’s an amazing defender.

Wiggins was bad because they asked him to do something he is not good at ,which is driving and creating. He is a limited offensive player and asking to do all these things made him unplayable. This is a lot of Kerr's fault

Everything is Kerr’s fault. When you can’t pay your rent it is Kerr’s fault; I just have not figured out how it is Kerr’s fault. Look at Kerr’s face; so punchable that Michael Jordan punched Kerr’s face in practice like Draymond punched Poole.

Wiggins seems to be at least 95% recovered from whatever was wrong with Wiggins.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

This game tells me how fricken amazing LeBron is. 39 and the guy still drags teams along.

PED's are amazing.

Yes but chosing the right doctors and the right PEDs and the right dealers requires skill. LeBron is the best.

[Coxy]

This game tells me how fricken amazing LeBron is. 39 and the guy still drags teams along.

PED's are amazing.

Yes but chosing the right doctors and the right PEDs and the right dealers requires skill. LeBron is the best.

I bow down.

[michaelm]

People don't realize that Wiggins is too good to be written off.
I read so many times during the years that Wiggins is a bust, worst contract in the league etc.

And Wiggins responds.
ROY, 24 ppg season, max extension, trade to Warriors, All star starter, 2d best player of a champion team.
I never write him off.
He is a weird personality and his career is not near his talent but his talent is too big to take his bad perforformance periods as normal

And take into consideration that Warriors do not set plays for Wiggins in order to score.
They set plays for Thompson, Kuminga, Podjemski but they let Wiggins score only when the ball (accidentaly) comes to him.

They run post ups for him as well as head tap. Wiggins is a limited scorer, which is fine because he’s an amazing defender.

Wiggins was bad because they asked him to do something he is not good at ,which is driving and creating. He is a limited offensive player and asking to do all these things made him unplayable. This is a lot of Kerr's fault

Imo there was a significant conditioning element, but both the first part of this season and most of his tenure at Minnesota proved he doesn’t thrive if major playmaking responsibility for the team is required of him. GSW cracked the code on how to make him an extremely effective player, then asked him to do something else, basically to be Draymond rather than be facilitated by Draymond.To quote Draymond, it is great playing with Wiggs, I tell him what to do and he does it. There is a reason FNQ loves Draymond.

You also imo underestimate Wiggins as an offensive player. His efficiency is not elite, and his shooting streaky or he would be even better, but he offers something different than the main GSW offensive options, particularly high athleticism/slashing and above the rim play, and especially in the 2022 play-offs made crucial buckets including 3 pointers when shots weren’t falling for others. I agree with Vagelis he could be a higher volume scorer if the team wished to concentrate on that, but what he does do is probably what helps the team most. Sure he is not the franchise player Minnesota were seeking, but as a 2 way player few are better on his current salary again imo, including him being a very handy offensive player as long as he is not expected to be a first option. If he was an elite shooter maple Jordan would be no misnomer and he would be one of the highest paid players in the NBA.

[michaelm]

I don't think it was Wiggins' bad play early this season that prompted all the trade talk. It was that, plus last season's absence and poor playoff showing... a full calendar year of bad or missing Wiggins that caused all the fire-sale talk.

If he keeps performing like this it'll be all good moving forward. But looking across the last two seasons, there's been more bad/missing Wiggins than championship-year Wiggins and current Wiggins is more the anomaly than the norm across that time span. That doesn't excuse idiotic trade banter, but people have a reason to be skeptical. This board is infested with short-termism, but Wiggs issues were way beyond RGMs typical three game slump reactionary thinking.

All the things being said about Wiggs can apply to Klay as well... His struggles have been going on for over a year now. Are the thoughts on Kay just short term reactionary thinking as well? 34 years old isn't exactly ancient in today's era of modern sports science.

Hopefully we're past it all now. Trade deadline has come and gone now, so we'll just have to see how it all shakes out and spin up more new ridiculous trade talk in the off-season.

Except Wiggins had a rib or rib cartilage injury, something very recoverable without long term effects on his athleticism, and 28 or 29 is significantly younger than 34. At Klay's age and with among the two worst injuries for a basketball player there is not much chance of him regaining his former athleticism and iron man endurance 2 years into his return. Wiggins was also playing excellently early last season before whatever his problems were. I guess it is fair to question how reliable his motivation is, particularly after whatever went on last year, but I don't think he can be blamed for being physically under-prepared at the start of this season after Lebron broke his rib while he was playing for GSW against the Lakers in a play-off game.

Someone on GSOM put it best imo, when Wiggins was playing badly he wouldn't have brought anything worthwhile in trade, if he returned to his best you wouldn't want to trade him, pretty much my attitude. I myself expected him to recover, if not as soon as he has given his trouble keeping weight on at the best of times.

I'm not disputing anything you're saying, I'm trying to add some perspective from the 'average/casual fan' point of view. Most fans can't to take 2 months off work for any reason whatsoever and then have a job to come back to, let alone collect a generational wealth paycheck while doing so. Then you add a 9-month timeline to fully recover from a rib cartilage fracture, an extremely long timeframe, plus a history of underperforming vs expectations (realistic or not) and you can see how the casual fan can start to form an image of a guy who's not committed to his insanely well-paid profession.

The best case, which maybe is the actual case, is that the Wiggins camp is just lousy at handling public perception. Personally I appreciate the Wiggs isn't out there trying to draw media attention to himself. And maybe I missed it, but seems to me that a little bit of positive PR would have gone a long way over what we got this past year, which was essentially radio silence.

I'm not saying that "Wiggs doesn't care" or "is a bum" is the right perspective, or that everyone's personal issues and injury recovery timeframes aren't unique, but it's easy to see how someone on the outside looking in would prefer a more outwardly committed player, even if that player came with a slightly lower ceiling.

The point the GSOM poster made with which I agree is that keeping him and hoping he would return to his best was the right option, because at his nadir he was not tradable for anyone of value, while at his best he is a bargain on his current salary. He is also proven to mesh well with the other important players. In regard to the latter I might consider trading him even though I am a Wiggs fan if Green retires or is no longer starter quality, his value is much less imo if he is not next to Draymond.

If he was less streaky as a shooter and didn’t have perceived attitudinal problems he would command much more than his current salary. And while NBA salaries are absurd by any ordinary standard they are what they are and that is the market in which Wiggins is operating. We also don’t know what his issue was last year so perhaps shouldn’t rush to judgement, but even if it was a mental health issue NBA players are not immune from same.