Prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, the Minnesota Timberwolves agreed to a lucrative five-year, $148 million extension with forward Andrew Wiggins under contract for the long haul.
However, there has been some growing chatter surrounding him not necessarily holding a secure spot in the team's long-term future due to his struggles on the court to fit in alongside All-Stars Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns that have led to frustrations about his role offensively. At this current juncture, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic is reporting that there doesn't appear to be much interest in him around the league.
But from what I can gather, Wiggins doesn’t have a huge amount of value on the market right now. He’s about to start a five-year, $148 million contract and is coming off of a less-than-convincing fourth season in the league.
If there isn’t a great market, they might be better off just holding on to him and trying to keep developing him. I still think that the best possible outcome for the Wolves is to get Wiggins to blossom into the kind of All-Star caliber player the organization envisioned when he was signed to the max extension.
The arrival of Butler has pushed Wiggins into more of a third option role in the offense with having to find his spots to operate best. What has been troubling about this spot has been that he has excelled in his brief NBA career in more iso situations while he has yet to prove that he is a reliable scoring threat from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, it has heightened his difficulties defensively that have become a prominent issue for him over the last couple of years.
On top of that, Wiggins' new contract that is set to go into effect this upcoming year starts at the base salary of $25.5 million for the 2018-19 season that will steadily increase over the next few years. This along with his stagnant development has essentially made him a huge financial commitment that teams might not necessarily feel is worth it.
Until Wiggins proves that he can perform at an All-Star level, this should likely remain the case for the Timberwolves if they still possess the desire to potentially move off him.