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Andrew Wiggins has never quite lived up to the overall expectations of a No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick, but he's checked a lot of boxes.
Wiggins is one of those guys that teams always seem to want. He's just never quite been a leading man.
The Miami Heat are the latest team utilizing Wiggins, and he's a useful player. But soon enough, a path beyond Wiggins might emerge.
In this case, the Heat may not even need to seek a trade.
The NBA is looking to expand, with the most likely cities being Seattle and Las Vegas. If that happens, there'll be an expansion draft.
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And in an expansion draft, teams leave certain players unprotected and able to be selected by the new teams.
Given Wiggins' contract and age, he'd be a logical guy for the Heat not to protect. If that happens, The Sporting News' Stephen Noh believes that Wiggins would be a top-10 pick in the expansion draft.
"Wiggins is another solid player who is probably going to be gettable," Noh wrote in a new mock expansion draft this week. "The Heat have a ton of young prospects who they can't afford to lose. Wiggins is still going to be a good player by this point in his career at age 33, and he'll provide some all-around play on the wing."
For what it's worth, Noh has Wiggins going to the Vegas franchise, but that aspect of this could really fall either way.
The reality is that the expansion draft could get Wiggins' contract off the Heat's books while giving a reliable player to a new team.
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