NBA Rookies

For the record, I am not too sure that Andrew Wiggins is the future of the NBA.  Honestly, I never was.  No offense to Wiggins, he is a good player and I never doubted his skills.  However, if I was looking for the next NBA great, I would be looking more at Nikola Mirotic.  This Chicago forward has all the skill needed to make it big in the NBA. He can currently play the 3 or 4 position, although he may be more suited to the 4 because of his size and the fact that he is a step slower than other 3s.  However, in the future, he may play more of a Mehmet Okur role, playing both the power forward and center.  Of course, Mirotic has the potential to be much greater than Okur, with a shooting stroke from long range that is exceptional for a 6 foot 10 inch player.  If you compare Wiggins with Mirotic using NBA stats, it looks something like this.  Mirotic has Wiggins bested in all of the field goal percentage stats, including True Shooting%, Effective Shooting%, Three-point Shooting% and traditional Field Goal%.  Wiggins, however, has more points per game. This is mainly because Wiggins plays for the Timberwolves, a team that is in real need of a productive star after the Kevin Love trade.  In Chicago, there is less of a need for a rookie forward to play big minutes and score points.  Then, if you get into Player Efficiency Rating, which by the way I am still not sure about, but is the gold standard currently, Mirotic wins again.  So, Minnesota has a talented scorer with many skills and a large amount of potential in Wiggins, but Chicago may have hit the jackpot with Nikola Mirotic.