An NBA team is a fragile ecosystem, each element dependent on the next for the whole to function optimally.
When one or two elements get out of whack, things may move forward for a while, but eventually everything withers.
We aren’t talking about the Toronto Raptors right now.
They’re an example – and have been for a while – of how when things are in sync the whole enterprise can be lifted.
How — if you stick with and help develop a DeMar DeRozan and draft and develop a Jakob Poeltl – you have the assets to trade for a Kawhi Leonard and still have enough quality on the roster to surround him with a team that can dream of NBA Finals appearances.
How winning can breed winning – LeBron James-induced stumbles aside.
The Raptors, 4-0, are Eden right now – or at least a garden not far off.
No, it’s the Minnesota Timberwolves – visiting Scotiabank Arena Wednesday night – that are in an outer suburb of basketball hell, where nothing lasting seems to grow and the ecosystem is failing.
That’s where Andrew Wiggins lives now.
Like nature, the NBA ecosystem can be unpredictable. There was time within the Raptors organization that consideration was being given to tanking to have a crack at drafting Wiggins – projected to be the Toronto area’s first homegrown NBA star – in the 2014 draft.
That’s why Raptors president Masai Ujiri had a trade in principle to send Kyle Lowry to the New York Knicks in December of 2013, having already sent then-Raptor Rudy Gay out the door. DeRozan was going to be next.
The view then was that the Raptors didn’t have the foundation of a winning team. Wiggins wasn’t the sole reason to tank — the thinking was the 2014 draft was so deep in prospects anywhere in the top five would get you something resembling a franchise player.
That one of them might be Wiggins – the high flyer from Vaughan – would have only been a bonus.
But the Lowry deal was pulled of the table by the Knicks and the Raptors somehow went from a 7-13 start to the No. 3 seed in the East in a heartbeat. Improbably, their winning ways had begun.
It was the luckiest move the Raptors never made.
That 2014 draft class never come close to matching the hype – by far the most productive player of the group — Nikola Jokic of Denver — was taken 41st; next is Clint Capela of Houston, taken 25th. Even Joel Embiid – a potential superstar taken at No. 3 – has only played in 97 games due to health issues.
Would the Raptors have done any better? The evidence says no. They took a swing on Bruno Caboclo at No. 20 and gave up on him last season after four years of minimal progress. The Raptors were also high on Tyler Ennis at that spot but he went two picks earlier. Neither are in the NBA this season. More remarkably Toronto’s second-round pick – DeAndre Daniels, taken 37th – has never played in the league while five players taken after him are thriving in the NBA, including Jokic, who may be the best player in the entire draft.
The Raptors’ record of finding talent in hard-to-find places is strong since, but they had nowhere to go but up.
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Meanwhile Wiggins, taken No. 1, has stalled as a potential star. Based on most advanced statistical measures – WinShares/48, Box Score plus-minus or Value Over Replacement Player – Wiggins is in the bottom half of the pack among those who have mustered at least 100 NBA games in the past four seasons. By some measures he is perilously near the bottom.
Wiggins’ boxscore stats look decent – he’s second among his draft class in points per game (19.7) and first in minutes played – but his contributions have had little impact on team success.
Imagine if the Raptors had ended up with Wiggins? How awkward it would all seem now. The fiasco in Minnesota has put a spotlight on his trajectory and short of a breakout season this year the idea of him meeting the expectations that come with being taken No. 1 overall – or even in the lottery – is closing.
According to league sources there was some discussion between Toronto and Minnesota about sending DeRozan to the T-Wolves in a deal for Wiggins, but they never gained momentum because there was concern that if Wiggins didn’t elevate his game it would backfire.
But it’s not like Wiggins has been in an ideal situation to succeed.
At the ownership level you have Glen Taylor, a well-meaning local billionaire who has presided over one of the least successful franchises in NBA history.
At a management level you have Tom Thibodeau occupying the dual president and coach roles – a proven hard-ass as a coach with zero history or credibility as an executive – who by all accounts is at odds with the owner.
And on the floor you have a collection of core players at odds with each other, where the one proven commodity – Jimmy Butler – is so determined to force his way off the team by trade that he’s mounted a terror campaign from within, including a holdout and one appearance in training camp where he spent an entire scrimmage berating his teammates, coaches and management before retiring to his apartment to sit down for a pre-arranged ESPN interview where he tried to explain himself.
Meanwhile Wiggins – an object of Butler’s fury – is playing in the first year of a five-year, $150-million max contract extension and is bordering on untradeable.
The Timberwolves averaged 25 wins in his first three seasons and while they jumped to 47-wins and made it to the post-season last year, Wiggins very much took a back seat to Butler with his statistics dropping across the board along with his usage rate.
Butler’s mantra at his training camp tirade was reportedly: “You can’t f—ing win without me.”
He had a point. It was his arrival last season that got them to the playoffs. Minnesota arrives in Toronto 2-2 but Wiggins has been a marginal factor. He left Monday night’s win over Indiana after only eight minutes with a thigh bruise and was just 8-of-21 from the floor and 1-of-5 from three against last week in a win over now-lowly Cleveland.
Wiggins has always fared well against the Raptors – in eight games he’s averaged 24 points and 4.8 rebounds versus his hometown team, his best splits against any team other than Cleveland and Sacramento. Minnesota is 3-5 against Toronto with Wiggins in the lineup.
In his previous visits home there was an air of anticipation around the game. The perfect result was Wiggins flashing his superstar-in-waiting form and a Raptors win. If Wiggins hadn’t been drafted to his hometown team, Raptors fans could look forward to him – maybe, one day – arriving via free agency. Until then, the thinking was, enjoy his rise.
But this time around there’s less to look forward to. Wiggins’ rise seems stalled. His situation seems desperate.
Meanwhile the Raptors have never been in a better place.
One way or another, nature has taken its course.
