Report: Andrew Wiggins Not a Cav Due Agent Decision
Andrew Wiggins was a Cleveland Cavaliers future star before LeBron James signed on with the team. At that point Wiggins was on his way out in a trade for Kevin Love. It made sense that LeBron wanted to play with the star stretch power forward with experience over the young guy who has a ton of upside but isn’t ready to compete right away. According to Brian Windhorst that was part of the decision but not all of it:
Windhorst said this morning Wiggins would have stayed with Cavs if he hadn't turned down LMLR as representation before the Draft
— Alexandre RAFFALLI (@AlexRaffalli) February 3, 2015
What he is referencing is an interview with Windhorst and ESPN Cleveland. You can hear the entire interview here, but skip to 22 minutes in for the discussion on Andrew Wiggins.
Windhorst talks through what happened with Wiggins, how LeBron’s agency represents a number of Canadian basketball players, including Tristan Thompson and starts to connect the dots for the hosts and listeners. The host cuts to the chase with a very direction question and Windy’s response has no grey area:
"If Wiggins does sign with LeBron’s team do you think he is a Cavalier?I do"
Wow!
Let’s think a little about what that all might mean. Basically LeBron would have been close with Wiggins and wanted to play with him if the Canadian star had signed with LRMR. Wiggins made the decision to not sign with them long before LeBron decided to join the Cavs but that decision had repercussions that he had no clue would happen.
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A ton of “what if” scenarios play out from this report. The Cavs would still likely pursue Kevin Love but would have had to add a few picks, along with other teams, to make it happen. The Cavs could have started the season with Kyrie Irving, Wiggins, LeBron and Love starting with Anderson Varejao or Tristan Thompson. They still would have traded Anthony Bennett and would have had to move Dion Waiters and quite a few picks to make the deal work. That would have left them without the assets to trade for J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and most importantly Timofey Mozgov. Whether they would have needed them as much is a different question.
Or the Cavs could have lost out on the Kevin Love sweepstakes and went searching for help in other areas. Mozgov likely would have been a player they targeted while Waiters and Bennett, along with the picks, would have been available to try to pry away talent elsewhere. Jeff Green may have been a target, reasonable to think since he was moved this season, who could play a stretch 4 type role. Irving, Wiggins, LeBron, Green and Mozgov would have been an interesting starting 5 as well.
So hard to know how things changed on the day that Andrew Wiggins turned down LRMR. His future, maybe for the better, was forever changed. The Cavs future, maybe for the better, was forever changed. The future of the NBA, for sure, was changed.
The real question is whether or not LeBron James’ agency, and their inability to sign Wiggins, should have had that kind of impact on the Cavs decision making?
What do you think about Andrew Wiggins NBA fate decided by which agency he signed with?