Since the trade deadline, the Minnesota Timberwolves have become one of my favourite League Pass teams to watch. Kevin Garnett wearing a #21 jersey has just the right amount of nostalgia and Ricky Rubio is healthy and dropping dimes that make me jump off of my couch.
But what has really caught my attention has been the emergence of Andrew Wiggins. Sure, he won Rookie of the Month the first three months of the season, but his game was plagued with inconsistency and hesitation.
During the month of February, Wiggins announces his arrival to the NBA by averaging 16.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.
Even though it’s been fun to watch Wiggins grow and develop this season, it has been a bittersweet experience because it hasn’t happened in a Toronto Raptors jersey.
Last season the Raptors almost got into the Riggin’ for Wiggins sweepstakes when they traded Rudy Gay to the Sacramento Kings for a bunch of spare parts and they had a deal in place to trade Kyle Lowry to the New York Knicks. When the Knicks had a change of heart at the last minute – better known as buyers remorse for getting burned and giving up too much for Andrea Bargnani – they bailed and Toronto went on a surge which would see them win the Atlantic Division and have a first round series which won the hearts of basketball and sports fans across Canada.
Andrew Wiggins struggled out of the gate during his rookie season averaging 12.3 points in November while shooting less than 40% from the field. Despite struggles adjusting to life in the NBA and the pressures of being the top overall pick, Wiggins was still named Rookie of The Month in November, December and January.
On the flip side, Toronto raced out to a 22-6 record to the season and one of the best records in the entire NBA. Fans across Canada were quick to jump on Toronto’s bandwagon.
For a short, brief period of time, fans forgot how close they had come to landing the hometown kid. Toronto had one of the best teams in the NBA while the local prodigy was struggling to adjust to life as a pro.
But things have flipped since the start of February.
The Raptors limped to a 4-5 record in February while Wiggins stole the show during the Rising Stars challenging during all-star weekend. I posted a picture on twitter of Wiggins rocking a Canada flag on his jersey and fans of the Raptors ate it up.
Kyle Lowry stole some attention during all-star weekend when he started the game after being voted in as an all-star due to fans and a couple of key Canadians rallying for his support. But the issues facing the team weren’t masked by some flash during all-star weekend.
Toronto had big wins against the Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks in February, but losses to the Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks and a New Orleans Pelicans team missing Jrue Holiday, Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson stung.
Ending the month on a five-game losing streak highlighted by a loss to the Knicks didn’t help instill any faith that the team was turning things around.
Toronto is now sinking in the standings while Wiggins is starting to take flight. The combination of those two things has left fans of the franchise frustrated and bitter that the team doesn’t have a bright future while Wiggins would look great in purple or red.
Last season DeMar DeRozan was an all-star when he averaged a career-best 22.7 points per game while shooting 42% from the field. This season his scoring has dipped to 17.8 and he’s shooting 38% from the field.
Kyle Lowry started off the season great, but he had to rest against the New York Knicks and he missed the game against Philadelphia to help rest his body. The rest is much-needed as Lowry averaged 11.9 points and 5.3 assists in February.
One of Toronto’s core building blocks for the future, Jonas Valanciunas, has found himself stuck to the bench for most fourth quarters this season. Despite being an analytics darling, he is only averaging 26.3 minutes per game this season.
Fans have gotten frustrated that Valanciunas hasn’t been able to carve out a niece for himself on the team this season despite showing flashes when given the chance to play through mistakes.
Toronto’s other young building block, Terrence Ross, lost his spot in the starting unit and was rumoured to be on the market leading up to the trade deadline.
So, while Toronto has floundered on the court, their two young pieces, Valanciunas and Ross, don’t appear to offer much hope in the near future of being pieces Toronto can count on during the stretch run this season.
Wiggins, meanwhile, is looking like the kind of star an NBA team can build around.
As Blake Murphy wrote about earlier this week, fans are now realizing that chemistry isn’t always sustainable.
William Lou also addressed the current lack of leadership on the team.
In short, Toronto now finds themselves in a mess, despite leading the division. I also look like an idiot for last week saying that February would just be a blip on the radar that is an 82 game season.
Masai Ujiri faces an interesting summer when the team has a lot of cap room – if they renounce the rights to Amir Johnson and Lou Williams – and the possibility of hosting a first round series in the playoffs for the second straight season.
However, despite some success on the court this season and the potential to make big moves this summer, fans are starting to wish the team had tanked last season so they could have had a shot at Wiggins.
There’s likely to be a lot of angry and bitter fans if Ujiri elects to rip things apart this summer and go with a rebuild when if he had done that 18 months earlier the team could have had a chance at Wiggins.
