NBA teams
David Thorpe, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Who should Andrew Wiggins study?

NBA, Minnesota Timberwolves

Basketball coaches are tasked with using anything they can to help their players enhance their games. Drills and skill work are great, but showing a player what the desired goal looks like is also a powerful teaching tool.

For years we have used this space as a way to show rookies who they can study to help them develop into more effective players. But as Shakespeare once famously wrote: "My heart laments that virtue cannot live out of the teeth of emulation." So just copying what these guys see here is not enough; hours and hours of study and practice is the only solution.

Here's who the Wolves' Andrew Wiggins should watch:

Rookie:
Andrew Wiggins, SF, Timberwolves

Player to study:
James Harden, SG, Rockets

Area to study:
Creating off the dribble

For Wiggins to reach his potential as a devastating scorer, he simply has to add adept ballhandling to his repertoire. Right now Wiggins can push the ball in a straight line, but he doesn't use his dribble to help him create attacking angles in half-court isolations, where the ball actually slows him down instead.

That's not the case with Harden, who has a better handle than any player standing over 6-foot-4. He uses his ballhandling skill like a sledgehammer, constantly destroying defenders by making them think he is attacking one way before deftly beating them off the dribble another way.

Kevin Durant is another player who exploded as a scorer once he became a far better dribbler, but it's Harden's change of speed and ability to use the ball to trick defenders that Wiggins should be watching all summer.

Here's an example:


Click below to see who other rookies should study (Insider):

  • Jordan Clarkson, Lakers

  • Dante Exum, Jazz

  • Langston Galloway, Knicks

  • Aaron Gordon, Magic

  • Jerami Grant, 76ers

  • Zach LaVine, Wolves

  • K.J. McDaniels, Rockets

  • Nikola Mirotic, Bulls

  • Shabazz Napier, Heat

  • Nerlens Noel,76ers

  • Jusuf Nurkic, Nuggets

  • Jabari Parker, Bucks

  • Elfrid Payton, Magic

  • Marcus Smart, Celtics

  • Nik Stauskas, Kings

  • Andrew Wiggins, Wolves

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