Minnesota Timberwolves swingman Andrew Wiggins had arguably the worst game of his career against the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night. Wiggins missed all 12 of his field goal attempts en route to a goose egg on the score sheet, and he only recorded one rebound and one assist in 29 minutes of action.
Luckily for the Timberwolves, Karl-Anthony Towns went for 35 points and 22 rebounds, which helped mitigate the dreadful performance from Wiggins (plus Robert Covington’s 1-of-18 shooting night). Minnesota took home a 111-96 victory over the shorthanded Bulls, and Towns was supportive of his struggling young co-star, according to ESPN’s Malika Andrews.
“The first thing we told Andrew is he came in here and we just laughed with him,” Towns said. “Everyone has a night like that. We have pretty good confidence he will come out and be just fine next game.”
Unfortunately, Wiggins has been in a prolonged slump. While the Timberwolves moved to 5-2 since the Jimmy Butler trade, the 23-year-old is shooting 33.3 percent from the field over that span. He’s now under 38 percent shooting for the season.
Wiggins is in the first year of a massive five-year extension worth nearly $147 million, and it’s not a good sign for Minnesota that he’s struggling so much. The Timberwolves winning games now is masking these issues, but they need him to perform much better if they’re going to win anything of consequence in the tough Western Conference. There’s still plenty of time to turn things around, but Wiggins has been inconsistent for years.
Minnesota is 9-11 and 1.5 games out of the No. 8 seed in the West.
