Could Andrew Wiggins offer the blueprint for RJ Barrett’s rookie extension?
Another former top three pick out of Canada, could Andrew Wiggins provide an eerily similar template for RJ Barrett’s rookie contract extension this offseason?
Let’s begin with the similarities closest to the surface: Andrew Wiggins and RJ Barrett both hail from the greater Toronto area, both sons of professional basketball players. They were both recruited heavily out of high school, and played one year of college basketball under intense scrutiny and the bright lights of an American blue-blood college program. They are two of the three Candians in NBA history drafted in the top three of the NBA Draft (the third is Anthony Bennett, who we shall ignore). They are both scoring wings (RJ is 6-foot-6; Wiggins 6-foot-7) who came into the league with iffy jump shots but the elite ability to get to and score at the rim. They are Olympic teammates.
As striking and unlikely as those parallels are, the connection runs even deeper. Tom Thibodeau coached both players during their respective age-21, third, pre-extension eligible NBA seasons (in Barrett’s case, both his second and third NBA seasons). In fact, Thibs ran precisely the same pistol sets for each of his young stud wings. For an illustration, in the video below you can observe both Wiggins and Barrett running a variation of a standard pistol set, whereby they pitch the ball to the big, relocate, catch the pitch back, and receive a screen going to their respective strong hands (RJ, left; Wiggins, right). I call this play “pistol pitch.”
Within those clips you will also see that both Canadians were trained in another pistol flourish of triangle offense origin, called “bling pig,” where the ball is entered directly to the big when the pitch-back is denied, and the wing cuts backdoor, again resulting in stong-hand momentum towards the rim.
Ostensibly, Thibs incorporated these identical pistol sets for his young, developing wings in order to simplify their pick-and-roll reps by ensuring that they were catching in motion, with a screen already set toward their strong hands, playing to their strengths of getting downhill. From there, the reads are more intuitive: If the big is too slow to help, attack the rim; if the big helps and the weak side fails to tag the roller, throw the lob; and if both the big and the weak side execute their help assignments, hit the weak side corner for three. In other words, Thibs saw enough similarities between the two in terms of their respective strengths and weaknesses that he had them running the very same plays, five years apart.
A statistical comparison (Year 3 to Year 3) lends further support to their similarities. Both Junior Wiggins and Junior RJ were the highest usage ball-handlers on their teams (both played next to high-usage bigs in Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle), and had above 90th percentile usage rates for wings (Wiggins at 29.9%; Barrett at 26.8%). Barrett averaged 20 points per game last season, nothing to be scoffed at for a 21-year-old. However, as Fred Katz pointed out in a recent article concerning RJ’s pending extension, Barrett was third-to-last of all 20-point scorers in the NBA last year in true shooting percentage (ahead of only Reggie Jackson and — insert sigh — Randle). In 2017, Wiggins averaged above 23 points per game and was second-to-last in true shooting percentage of all 20-point scorers, ahead of only sophomore Devin Booker. Both third-year players qualified as high-volume, low-efficiency scorers.
That said, Wiggins was the more efficient of the two, with 106.8 points per shot attempt compared to Barrett’s 102.2, a 48.6% effective field goal percentage compared to RJ’s 46.7%, and true shooting of 53.4% compared to RJ’s 51.1%. Wiggins was superior from 2-point range, 3-point range, and the free throw line. Most significantly, both players took a very large percentage of their shots at the rim, but Wiggins shot 62% at the cup, while Barrett shot just 55%. Both players were elite at drawing shooting fouls.
RJ remained within reasonable distance of third-year Wiggins despite these discrepancies for one reason: shot selection. Wiggins took a whopping 47% of his shots from the midrange, and 30% from the long midrange — i.e. the least efficient shot in basketball. In stark contrast, just 29% of RJ’s shots were middies, and a minuscule 5% were taken from the long midrange. Indeed, shot selection was a constant critique of young Wiggins, and for good reason. This past season, the most efficient of Wiggins’ career, he cut the long two percentage in half, to just 14% of his shot attempts.
Why is all of this so important? Because Andrew Wiggins received a max extension the summer after his third season for five years, $146.5 million, a contract that was a self-admitted gamble by the Timberwolves brass at the time. As Kevin Pelton detailed in his ESPN story shortly after the extension was signed, Wolves’ owner Glen Taylor was expecting significant improvement from Wiggins over the course of the contract:
“To me, by making this offer, I’m speculating that his contribution to the team will be more in the future. We’ve got to be better. He can’t be paid just for what he’s doing today. He’s got to be better.”
Unfortunately, Taylor speculated incorrectly, and Wiggins regressed after his third season in Minnesota. In fact, the max contract was considered such an albatross three seasons later that the Wolves had to attach a first round pick to trade it in the D’Angelo Russell trade, a pick that fell to Golden State at No. 7 and yielded the tantalizing Jonathan Kuminga. Wiggins, even following a career-altering performance in the 2022 playoffs and winning a championship this past season, remains an overpaid role player. Max extensions are supposed to be limited to star players, and Wiggins does not qualify.
The inescapable similarities between these two Olympic teammates have to be on the minds of the New York Knicks front office personnel as they approach a momentous crossroads marked most prominently by the following question: Do they offer RJ Barrett, a player even less efficient than Wiggins was at this stage of his career, a max contract now valued at five years, $185 million? Wiggins has topped out as a very good role player on a star-studded team. Perhaps that is Barrett’s basketball destiny as well.
To this point, I have presented arguments that Leon Rose may well relay to Barrett’s agent, Bill Duffy.
By the way, here’s another similarity along with a wild plot twist: Duffy also represented Wiggins when he signed the aforementioned max extension, but was subsequently fired and replaced by Rose’s CAA.
If I were Duffy, I would counter with the following retorts:
1. Spacing: Wiggins was running pistol actions with arguably the greatest shooting center of all time in Karl-Anthony Towns, while RJ is running them with Mitchell Robinson, a center who literally cannot make a shot without grabbing the rim. According to Basketball Index, Wiggins played in lineups with a C- spacing rating in 2016-2017, while RJ’s lineups this past season received a cold, hard F. It could very well be that 55% jumps to 60+% at the rim with superior spacing around RJ.
Counterargument: Wiggins is a premier vertical athlete, which makes finishing around the rim a far easier endeavor than it is for Barrett, regardless of spacing. Remember this finish in the NBA Finals? RJ could only dream of that kind of hang time.
2. Shot selection: Basketball intelligence and self-awareness is a skill worth paying for, and RJ Barrett has those attributes, while Wiggins may have lacked them. RJ doesn’t take midrange jumpers because he knows they are not yet within his comfort zone, and regardless, are shots to be avoided if possible. Barrett’s shot chart consisting primarily of rim attempts and threes is an analytics dream.
Counterargument: RJ doesn’t take midrange jumpers because he is objectively terrible at them. He shot 31% in the midrange last season, 17th percentile among NBA wings, while Wiggins shot 38%, 46th percentile, in 2016-2017. While he did need to cut down on those empty carbs, Wiggins’ ability to create and make midrange jumpers is a valuable skill — especially in late clock situations and against good defenses — that RJ does not currently possess.
3. Defense: Barrett has not yet developed into a wing stopper by any means. He often closes out too short on shooters, has a bad habit of losing his man backdoor, is not the quickest defender laterally, and does not create defensive events. Even so, his toughness, strength, and effort render him far superior to where Wiggins was as a defender at 21 years old. Basketball Index graded RJ an A- for his on-ball perimeter defense last season, an A as an off-ball chaser, and a C as a rim protector, whereas Wiggins in 2016-17 graded at C, C+, and F, respectively, in those categories.
Counterargument: With superior athleticism and a longer wingspan, Wiggins was probably always the better defensive prospect, even if it took him longer to invest on that end of the floor, and this was born out this past postseason when Wiggins flourished as a wing-stopper for the Warriors. On the other hand, RJ’s edge in sheer strength gives him the advantage in certain matchups.
4. Playmaking potential: Passing is one area in which Barrett indisputably has Wiggins beat. Last season, RJ assisted on 14.6% of his teammates’ baskets, and sported an assist to usage ratio of .55, 44th percentile amongst NBA wings. Despite even higher usage than Barrett, Wiggins in his third NBA season assisted on just 10.5% of his teammates’ made baskets, and his assist to usage ratio was a bleak .38, in just the 14th percentile for NBA wings. Wiggins simply never displayed any advanced passing chops, while Barrett has all the passes, even if, as I’ve detailed, there remains great room for improvement. Inefficient scoring coupled with deficient playmaking will never justify the high-usage that should accompany a max contract, but the Knicks would be betting on RJ developing into a more efficient scorer and a top-tier playmaker.
5. Charlie Ward: The Knicks have floundered for two decades, represented perhaps most vividly by the fact that they have not extended any draft pick since Charlie Ward. Barrett is a flawed player, but he is the Knicks’ flawed player, with a spirit, presence, and work ethic worthy of investment and solid enough to support a foundation.
As Jon Macri noted in his newsletter detailing all of the Barrett extension permutations, Wiggins is undoubtedly the “closest post-third-season, five-year max comp” to Barrett, which provides Leon Rose with some leverage. That said, Barrett has leverage too, and there are legitimate reasons to be optimistic about RJ’s continued upward progression. Besides, Wiggins’ stock is higher now than at any point since he signed his max, and according to the latest reporting, his next contract may even exceed his prior one. High-level wings are worth a ton of money in the NBA, even if they never achieve true All-Star status (and to be clear, Wiggins’ All-Star berth this season was a farce). Perhaps Wiggins’ relative failure in Minnesota had more to do with the Timberwolves than it did with Andrew Wiggins. If Barrett turns into some version of the current Wiggins — a two-way wing that impacts high-level winning — a max won’t even look all that bad. The Knicks are hoping for even more than that.
Ultimately, any dollar the Knicks can save on RJ’s next deal is a win, but this is a player they should invest in for all the reasons already stated. The Knicks can only dream that five years down the road, no matter how it looks between now and then, Barrett earns every dollar by showing out in an NBA Finals, creating yet another parallel with his countryman.
