What if Thunder worked deal for Andrew Wiggins?
The Thunder had a difficult-to-trade contract. Russell Westbrook's. Four remaining years, $170 million total, for a 31-year-old point guard.
The Thunder found a partner by finding a virtually-impossible-to-trade contract. Chris Paul's. Three remaining years, $124 million total, for a 34-year-old point guard.
Now the Thunder wants to move Paul, but talks with Miami have stalled, and the Heat seems to be the prime suitor for CP3.
So what if the Thunder went back to the well. What if the Thunder did what Houston did. Trade a virtually-impossible-to-trade contract for a difficult-to-trade contract.
What if the Thunder worked a deal with the Timberwolves for Andrew Wiggins?
The Minnesota wing has a burdensome contract – four years remaining, paying $27.5 million, $29.5 million, $31.5 million and $33.6 million.
That's a lot of money for even an all-star. Wiggins has not been an all-star.
The overall No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft has been a Minnesota cornerstone. But also a disappointment. In five NBA seasons, Wiggins has averaged 19.4 points and missed only 10 games total.
But Wiggins has not been the defensive demon he was projected to be coming out of Kansas; in fact, the opposite is true. Wiggins has struggled defensively and shown a lackadaisical attitude when the T-Wolves don't have the ball.
Just as damning, Wiggins has become an inefficient player. His career .332 3-point percentage is a sub-standard, and Wiggins' overall field-goal percentage has dipped three straight years, from .459 in 2015-16 to .452, .438 and .412.
Wiggins is a lot like San Antonio's DeMar DeRozan, except the Spurs' wing hardly ever takes a 3-pointer and shoots (and makes) more long 2-pointers.
The truth is, Wiggins has stagnated in Minnesota. He looked like a budding star in 2015-16 and 2016-17, when he averaged over 20 points a game and shot better than 45 percent from the field.
Now he's an albatross around Minnesota's neck, and the Timberwolves desperately want to improve their team while they have star center Karl-Anthony Towns under contract the next five seasons.
Chris Paul would do it. A CP3-KAT combination would be interesting and effective, so long as Paul stays healthy, which is always the risk of trading for 34-year-old point guards. But such a trade would lift Minnesota's effectiveness and remove Wiggins from the payroll, which seems to be a Minnesota goal.
So what's in it for OKC, besides another ball-and-chain contract?
A couple of things. Wiggins is not a bad player. He's just not been a great player. A good player making great money can kill payroll structure. And the Thunder is just coming out of the woods of deep luxury taxes. There is no thirst for returning until or unless the Thunder resumes championship contention.
But Wiggins is a wing, and wings have become the NBA's most prized possessions. Point guards are in abundance (don't look now, but the Thunder has three starting-caliber point guards in CP3, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dennis Schroder). Centers are necessary but not precious (and the Thunder has three of those, ranging from the valuable Steven Adams
to the helpful Nerlens Noel and Mike Muscala). Wings have become the matrix of the NBA, and wings who can score and defend all over the court have become the most valuable players in the game. Kawhi Leonard. Kevin Durant. Paul George.
Wiggins is not in the class of Kawhi, Durant or PG. He might not be in the class below them.
But that gets us to the second reason for intrigue over Wiggins. He's only 24 years old. Wiggins isn't necessarily what he's going to be.
Wiggins has played 400 NBA games, all of them for a dysfunctional franchise. Sorry, Minnesota, but the description fits.
The T-Wolves never have had quality ownership. They've had unstable management; Wiggins is on his fourth general manager and he's played only five seasons – Flip Saunders, Milt Newton, Tom Thibodeau and Scott Layden.
Wiggins has played for four coaches – Flip Saunders, Sam Mitchell, Thibodeau and Ryan Saunders.
Maybe Wiggins would be the same player if he's been playing for the Spurs instead. But environment and culture matter.
Ponder this. Ever wonder how Westbrook's career would have developed had he been drafted by a dysfunctional franchise? Sacramento or New Jersey or somebody?
Westbrook was an unbroken mustang when he arrived in OKC, and the Thunder had the smarts to give him just enough structure and just enough latitude to thrive. Long-time NBA analyst David Thorpe calls it the royal jelly; how coaches and an organization and nurture a young player to achieve their potential.
Some franchises have the royal jelly, and the Thunder absolutely fits into that
category. Some franchises do not, and the Timberwolves absolutely fit into that category.
What if Andrew Wiggins is a really good player, a potential star, who has just been mired in a bad situation? A franchise of constant change and turmoil. A franchise without a direction. A franchise without structure.
This stuff happens in the NBA, and sometimes a player never rises above it. But sometimes a player does.
Here's an example:
Chauncey Billups. We now look back on Billups as a wonderful player, the veteran leader of the 2004 Pistons' championship team and a rock-solid cornerstone.
But five years into Billups' career, he was considered a big bust. Taken by the Celtics with the third pick in the 1997 draft, Billups spent his first five NBA seasons in mediocrity.
He was traded thrice. He signed as a free agent in 2000 with the woebegone Timberwolves, making $2.25 million. Billups averaged 11.3 points and shot 40 percent from the field in those five years.
He played for Boston in the disastrous M.L. Carr and Rick Pitino years, for Toronto in its early stages of being an expansion franchise and for Denver during its long drought of relevancy. While injured, Billups was sent to Orlando as a throw-in to make a trade work; he never played for the Magic.
That free-agent contract Billups signed with Minnesota? He took a pay cut to play there, hoping Kevin Garnett could help resurrect his career.
Didn't really help. But in summer 2002, Billups signed with Detroit as a free agent. And finally he found a franchise that knew what it had.
To that point, Billups had come off the bench for 94 of his 297 career games. But the Pistons – with Joe Dumars running the front office and Rick Carlisle coaching -immediately knew what it had.
Billups became a Motor City icon. The Pistons made the 2003 East finals, won the NBA title in 2004 and made six straight East finals. A Motor City icon and an NBA star.
Billups was 25 years old when he signed with Detroit.
I'm not saying Wiggins is the next Chauncey Billups. I'm saying where you play matters. Who you play for matters.
Taking on Wiggins' salary would be a huge gulp for the Thunder. Taking on Wiggins' salary would be showing the utmost confidence in the Thunder Way, the belief that the Thunder culture is strong.
But there are two things I like about the gamble:
1) It's a chance to get better, maybe a lot better, without going through a massive teardown. You know me. I hate tanking with a passion reserved for the French Resistance. The Thunder has a decent core. Build from that core, with all those draft picks and whatever Wiggins might give you, sounds a lot better than relying on lottery luck.
2) Trading for Wiggins is betting on yourself. Drafting a future star can happen. The Thunder's done it before. And with the age requirement apparently going to drop by year 2022 or so, meaning the policy of high school-to-pros is back in business, drafting acumen becomes more important, drafting positioning less so. Not that smarts will trump position, but with a year less to scout, some jewels will drop in the draft. That will help the Thunder.
But still, the draft is a crapshoot if you're not picking first or third. Developing a star seems as likely as drafting a star.
The Thunder prides itself on player development. The Thunder has a history of taking troubled players and resurrecting their reputations. Dion Waiters. Enes Kanter. Or taking young players who hadn't been given the chance to prosper. Thabo Sefolosha. Jerami Grant.
Put that culture to the ultimate test with Wiggins.
And the beauty of the Wiggins possibility -- it costs the Thunder no draft picks. Straight up swap for Paul, with Minnesota also sending over whoever else is needed to make the money work.
The Timberwolves apparently have been shopping Wiggins.
The Minnesota blog, dunkingwithwolves.com, threw out three trade proposals in June, before the draft:
To San Antonio for DeMar DeRozan, with the Spurs also getting the since-traded Dario Saric and some picks;
•To Detroit for Blake Griffin, with the Pistons also getting Robert Covington and draft picks;
•To OKC for Dennis Schroder and Andre Roberson.
The Chris Paul trade seems a better deal for Minnesota than any of those.