There's no question that Andrew Wiggins is poised to become an NBA starelite athleticism, an explosive first step and a solid jump shot. While his offensive skills have a long way to go, the raw skills are there.
But it's not on offense that Wiggins will help the Cleveland Cavaliers the most; his athleticism is a huge advantage on the defensive end, and he showed flashes of lockdown defense as a freshman at Kansas. Add to that his knack for scoping out an opponent's offensive intentions and generally accurate instincts, and he's well on his way to defensive stardom.
Part of the reason why Cleveland dealt for Luol Deng last season was to shore up its perimeter defense, a huge area of need over the past few seasons. Though the Cavs were 23rd in offensive rating last season, according to NBA.com, much of that difficulty stemmed from a young roster struggling to find any type of cohesion amongst its developing scorers.
There was also the problem of a brand new coach with a brand new offense and the constant disruption of lineup tinkering and learning on the fly. Given time in new head coach David Blatt's offense and more years under its belt, Cleveland's young core of Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and Andrew Wiggins should find a way to sort things out offensively.
That's just not necessarily the case on the defensive end. The energy Irving expends on offense limits his effort on the other end, and the league is chock-full of talented point guards. While he'll certainly improve bit by bit over the next few years, he's not showing any signs of becoming a lockdown guard.
Dion Waiters, meanwhile, has never been interested in defense whatsoever. He's also a bit small as far as shooting guards go and can get caught in bad matchups in cross-matching. Same goes for Jarrett Jack, whose physicality allows him to handle bigger guards while getting overmatched by quickness.
Enter Andrew Wiggins, who can now take pressure off his fellow wings by immediately taking away the opponent's best perimeter player. He's already shown the ability to guard 1-4, adept at sliding his feet laterally against smaller, faster point guards while using his length to bother shots should he get beat.
