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Tyler Lashbrook of SB Nation on Andrew Wiggins:

Wiggins is a human pogo stick with go-go gadget arms. He doesn’t jump; he levitates off the ground. It’s almost as if he pauses in the air before returning back to earth. When he finally lands, he has the ability to pop right back up. His second jump is incredibly quick and makes him deadly on the offensive glass.

Wiggins uses his athleticism best on defense. He’s extremely quick laterally and can recover back to his man faster than anyone in the draft. He’s fast enough to stay in front of smaller guards and tall enough to guard bigger wings. He was basically unstoppable on the break at the college level, scoring 1.3 points per possession in transition, fourth best in DraftExpress’ Top 100. He can catch oops from the wing or handle the ball himself. He can handle the rock in transition because all he has to do is dribble in a straight line.

Excuse me while I zip my pants back up. I think the unquestioned number one pick should be Wiggins. That was the opinion of most just six or seven months ago, before the college basketball season started. But then the usual naysayers did their nay saying because Wiggins was a college freshman and didn’t put up 40 and 20 every night because he was a college freshman. The knock on Wiggins is that he’s not dominant, doesn’t want the rock, can’t handle the spotlight, etc.

But those were some of the very same things that were said about Kevin Durant.

Here’s what the Sporting News dug up in March from a scouting report on Durant:

“Does he have the fire inside to maximize his abilities and develop a killer instinct? He has a laid back demeanor; will he continue to work hard after he starts cashing 7-figure checks?”

“One aspect of his game that was put on center stage throughout the (NCAA) tournament was his tendency to disappear throughout stretches of the game. For 10 minutes, you will be watching the best player the college game has had to offer in the last 10 years. Then for 5 minutes, you will forget that he is even on the floor offensively.”

LTFOL.

And from an ESPN.com story before Durant was drafted behind Greg Oden (who admittedly was the consensus number one):

Kevin Durant wowed NBA teams in his one college season at Texas. At last week’s pre-draft camp? Not so much, according to a confidential draft camp report obtained by The Seattle Times.

According to the newspaper, the report said Durant was ranked 78th out of 80 NBA prospects who worked out at Orlando, while Ohio State center Greg Oden had an impressive workout.

According to the Times, Durant was the only prospect at camp who failed to bench press 185 pounds, and finished behind Oden in some key drills, including the vertical leap, agility drill and three-quarter court sprint.

Oden jumped 34 inches in the vertical leap while Durant jumped 33½ inches, completed the agility drill in 11.67 seconds to Durant’s 12.33 seconds, and finished the three-quarter court sprint in 3.27 seconds, ahead of Durant’s 3.45 seconds, according to the report.

They were… wrong.

This is a no-brainer. Wiggins is a freak athletically. He has all the makings of a star NBA player. He could potentially be a once-in-every-six-or-seven years player. You don’t pass on somebody like that. Tonight, root for the number one ping pong ball, because I can’t imagine Sam Hinkie is stupid enough to miss an opportunity like this.

http://youtu.be/VaNTcfOMSx8&start=10

Eliot Shorr-Parks completely disagrees with me. That’s cool. I’m sure the gang bangers will find him any day now.