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By all accounts, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is a big believer in James Wiseman. Or, at the absolute least, he plays one on TV. After the Dubs’ latest debacle — a road loss to the lottery-chasing Orlando Magic — Kerr expressed his support for the talented young big amid some recent struggles.
“I think it’s been a tough couple of games for James, but I’m a believer,” Kerr said following the loss. “I love his talent, his attitude, but there’s no shortcut for all this. You’ve got to go through your lumps as an extremely young player with little to no experience. It takes time.”
Time is of the essence, though, for a Warriors team that is already falling woefully short of expectations. And Wiseman clearly has ways to go as a player.
The former No. 2 overall pick saw just 10 minutes of action against the Magic, scoring two points, getting whistled for three fouls and registering a minus-eight in the plus/minus department. The latter number brings his running total to a whopping minus-66 over 121 total minutes on the court.
Wiseman’s situation has gotten so bad, in fact, that he now finds himself in a statistical class all his own (and in the worst possible way).
Catch-All Metric Places Wiseman at the Literal Bottom of the League
While there are a number of catch-all metrics out there — like VORP, box plus/minus, real plus/minus and PER, to name a few — FiveThirtyEight‘s RAPTOR score is definitely one of the more frequently cited numbers among the analytics crowd. And RAPTOR is painting a particularly grim portrait of Wiseman’s efforts right now.
As of this writing, the young pivot’s RAPTOR mark of minus-12.1 ranks dead last league-wide among ballers having played 72 or more minutes this season. That’s a group that includes no less than 289 players, and Wiseman is at the absolute bottom of the barrel.
Obviously, this isn’t a good thing. But the number tracks when one considers that Wiseman’s net rating currently checks in at minus-26.1, the worst mark among all of Golden State’s major minute-getters. There have also been some rough eye-test moments, like not understanding his job in certain offensive sets (as seen above), or letting much smaller players beat him on the glass.
Regardless, Kerr has committed to playing the long game with the big man, not to mention the rest of the Warriors’ up-and-comers. As he sees it, the road to NBA success is a long and arduous one, and Wiseman and Co. have only just begun to traverse it.
Kerr Sounds Off on Wiseman’s Journey
It’s no secret that the Warriors had been counting on their youngsters to hold it down in the second unit this season. At the same time, the youth movement hasn’t really reached a point in its development where that’s a reasonable ask, and Kerr is keenly aware of that fact.
“You don’t get these guys who basically play, you know, three college games in James’ case… it doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “So, the development plan is something that we’re looking at comprehensively every day… These guys are working. There’s going to be times where they’re in the rotation, there’s going to be times where they’re not — the season will dictate all of that.”
Right now, the season is dictating that the Dubs go in another direction. But it may just behoove the organization to keep plugging away with its prospects in spite of the early setbacks, lest it misses out on a payout down the road.
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