Riggin for Wiggins – Are Teams Tanking for a Shot at Andrew Wiggins in 2014 NBA Draft?

Before Andrew Wiggins even committed to play for Kansas in college, NBA scouts had already started picking up strong signals on their radars resonating from this immensely talented kid.

Some teams interpreted those signals as a reason to chalk up the losses during the 2013-2014 NBA season, all for a higher chance of landing the first overall pick in the coming draft. It’s the longer way of saying the now ubiquitous phrase in NBA circles: Riggin’ for Wiggins.
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NBA Teams that May be Tanking for Andrew Wiggins

While other teams are solely focused on winning the championship, there are teams right now like the Philadelphia Sixers, Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz who are in a league of their own, all seemingly intent on losing more games than the other so they can have the most balls in the draft lottery.

So if teams like these are going to tank all season long, what are we to make of these franchises?

First, let’s take a look a the kid himself.

What’s with Wiggins?

Wiggins, the highly coveted former No. 1 high school prospect has left scouts and coaches drooling. When LeBron James was making every scout roll on the ground in sheer awe of his talent around 10 years ago, many basketball pundits said that such a player could only appear once per generation. Well, they might be wrong.

It looks like we might not have to wait another 20 years before we see another player with that rare mix of youth, height, length, athleticism, and skill, all bound together into one scary-good package. The Jayhawks’ freshman is a physically elite specimen. Wiggins is 6’8” with a measured wingspan of seven feet. And unlike other players who have the same set of physical tools, he utilizes them both on offense and on defense exceptionally well.

In addition, his youth opens up room for improvement, which seems a bit unfair given all the things said about how this wunderkind could make a big splash in the NBA right now – with or without polishing. [sc:NBA240banner ]

If it sounds like we’re describing some sort of an LBJ-clone, it’s because Wiggins’ massive potential lines him up on pretty well the same route that James has been traversing so far in his Hall-of-Fame career.

Other Prospects In the Lottery Race

Julius Randle, Jabari Parker, Dante Exum, and Marcus Smart.

Those are just some of the other huge talents that could be available for next year’s NBA Draft. Those four players are No.1 overall pick calibre, but because of Wiggins, they’ll be consolation prizes for teams that miss  the chance to pick first and snag the 18-year old Jayhawk.

The Top 3 Teams Riggin’ for Wiggins

1. Philadelphia 76ers

The Sixers have traded Andre Iguodala and sat Noel for the rest of the season. They also moved big salary cap space eating Andrew Bynum. We all know it — those are the wheeling and dealings akin to a team hell-bent on tanking.

However, early in the season, the Sixers appeared to forget that they’re supposed to suck. They won three straight to open their season, including huge upsets over the Miami Heat (!) and the Chicago Bulls. Perhaps the memo arrived late in the Sixers’ locker room, but They are now back to driving their team into the ground. After their win over Chicago, the Sixers went 2-8 SU. Now those bettors who wagered on Philadelphia going under the Vegas line of 16.5 regular season wins can let out a small sigh of relief.

2. Boston Celtics

This season is creating an unusual feeling among Celtics fans. Longtime leader Paul Pierce is gone. So is Kevin Garnett. Doc Rivers is no longer roaming the sidelines because apparently he doesn’t want to be embroiled with a team destined to crash. This brings us to rookie coach Brad Stevens, who is good at egging college players to play extra hard, but might find it difficult to manage baggage-filled, egocentric pros. He has a raft of players in Boston with “No Future” written all over. And by the way, Rajon Rondo is still on the injured list.

Boston started the season expectedly. The Celtics were 0-3 SU to begin their bourgeoning mediocre year on the court. Much like Philadelphia, the Celtics had a winning streak (four games) but the Law of You Can’t Win Too Many Because Your Team Sucks just has too tight a grip on the Celtics as they lost five straight games after that brief respite from being terrible. The Celtics were given a line of 28 wins by Vegas.

3. Utah Jazz

Al Jefferson is now a Bobcat and Paul Millsap parted ways with the Jazz over the offseason. Left behind is a cast of players no one is actually expecting to put the team above .500, much less into the playoffs.

Gordon Hayward anchors the offense and Enes Kanter and Derrick Favors will try to cover the big gaping hole left by Jefferson and Millsap.

Utah is in a rebuilding phase, no doubt about that. Utah has one win in 13 games so far, and at this point, the Jazz are further ahead than any team in the race for Wiggins. That said, the Jazz recently seem to be playing their cards well for bettors as of late. The Jazz, who only won once against the spread in their first nine games, have gone 4-1 ATS in their last five games.

*All trends mentioned in this article are accurate as of November 23.

Head over to the sportsbook now and place your bets on all this years NBA action, and try not to get too excited as you wait for Wiggins to hit the big stage.

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