Finding promise in Andrew Wiggins' rookie season

Andrew Wiggins being named the NBA's Rookie of the Year on Thursday was more of a long awaited coronation than any sort of revelation.

Wiggins averaged roughly 19 points, five rebounds, two assists and a steal over the final 56 games of the season, dating back to his breakout performance in Cleveland of all places on Dec. 23.

For Wiggins, the questions will now shift from whether the highly touted prospect could live up to the rookie hype to whether he can establish himself as the star so many envision.

The 20-year-old's numbers provide reason for optimism.

Wiggins' 2969 minutes played trailed only James Harden, and he became the youngest player in league history to log such a heavy load.

Racking up minutes on a terrible team that has a ton invested in you isn't necessarily indicative of a bright future, but digging deeper into the numbers, the signs are there.

In searching for non-big rookies (bigs are usually held to a higher standard of efficiency) who have played similar minutes to Wiggins, while also using at least 22 percent of their teams' possessions and posting individual offensive ratings of at least 102.5, as the Canadian phenom did, the following names emerge:

• Kelly Tripucka
• Michael Jordan
• Allen Iverson
• Derrick Rose
• O.J. Mayo
• Damian Lillard

Producing 1.025 points per individual possession is nothing to write home about, but for a rookie with above average usage and a plethora of minutes under his belt, it's a solid mark.

The presence of Mayo may cause some skepticism, and that's fair.

Like Wiggins, Mayo was a high school prodigy who somewhat underwhelmed in his lone college campaign, and Mayo was actually the more efficient rookie despite a higher usage rate. But a few observations lean heavily in Wiggins' favor.

For one, Wiggins is the vastly superior defender, a 6-foot-8 swingman whose individual D was NBA-ready the day he stepped into the league. He's also the bigger, more explosive athlete, and likely would have been able to produce more efficiently had his three-point attempts not been limited in Flip Saunders' outdated system.

Wiggins' 31 percent three-point shooting leaves much to be desired, but the youngster has a pure stroke and the range to be a knockdown shooter, and he should have attempted more long-range bombs.

Only 11 percent of Wiggins' field goal attempts came from deep, far too few for such a capable shooter. Mayo, by comparison, saw over 29 percent of his rookie attempts come from behind the arc.

When you consider that over 22 percent of Wiggins' attempts came from the dreaded long-two range - on 2-pointers longer than 16 feet - where he actually shot slightly worse than he did on threes, it's easy to see where he can improve on his efficiency going forward, provided Saunders allows him to.

The most promising component of Wiggins' rookie season was his innate ability to get to the free throw line.

Wiggins drew free throws on 41 percent of his field goal attempts, a stunning figure that placed him in the top-10 among non-bigs.

To truly appreciate how effective Wiggins was as a 19-year-old foul-drawing machine, consider that the only two other non-big rookies to post a Free Throw Rate above 40 percent in the last 13 seasons (minimum 2000 minutes) were John Wall and Chris Paul.

Wiggins isn't a guaranteed Hall of Famer, something an increasingly impatient social media army seems to demand.

But between his durability, freak athleticism, defensive ability and knack for pocketing easy points at the charity stripe, his rookie campaign was chock-full of signs that the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy is only the beginning of a career more in line with generational talents than disappointing Mayo-types.

(Stats Courtesy: Basketball Reference)