How Does Aaron Wiggins Fit Into Future Thunder Plans?

Despite struggling in the postseason, Oklahoma City’s role players played a huge part in the Thunder’s successful season. Everyone stepped up on the bench and contributed to the Thunder being one of the deepest teams in the NBA.

The key moving forward will be finding out a way to keep key contributors while paying the team’s stars. Two of those key contributors, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe, can negotiate an extension soon before testing the free agent market next season.

While the Thunder should certainly keep Joe for his shooting, Wiggins could be a swing player moving forward. His development, chemistry, a team-first approach could help him turn into a special piece on this Thunder team down the line. He was a low volume, high efficiency player all season long, but has a chance to breakout even more in the future.

“There's a number of things that I can continue to build on,” Wiggins said during his exit interview. “I'll continue to just work on ball handling. On the offensive side, ball handling, shooting, all of the basics that everybody would say.

“But defensively, continuing to just kind of work on lateral quickness, my physical being and stuff, just try to come in a better player. That's what everybody is going to say. You work on the things you need to work on as an individual, but at the end of the day, you want to come back a better player, a noticeably better player.”

This wasn’t just a one year wonder for Wiggins, and he has more room to grow moving forward. He should be viewed as a longterm piece in Oklahoma City and projects to fit perfectly with the current core down the line. He’s a terrific slasher, a willing passer, and an able defender. He has also continued to improve his 3-point shot and he’s starting to show the self-creation that the Thunder is missing off the bench.

In a career-high 78 games, Wiggins averaged 6.9 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists on an impressive 56.2% from the floor and 49.2% from 3-point range. Both percentages were career best marks, and he was a game-changer for the Thunder off the bench. As he experiments more with his isolation and self-creation, he could turn into the hybrid mix of a guard and a wing that can score for himself off the bench. He’s also the perfect spot starter, as he’s extremely consistent in any role.

If Oklahoma City chooses to extend him sooner rather than later, the value in the contract will certainly be there. Every contending team needs a player like Wiggins, and locking him down at a team-friendly price would be perfect for the Thunder’s future plans.

“The ability to be willing to do what it takes to win,” Wiggins said about his mindset. “I don't force to try to do a specific thing for my individual success. I want to be a part of a winning team. I want to be a part of a winning culture. And I want to maximize obviously my level of play, but also others'. And being in an environment where you can do that is more important than being an individually great player but not in a great environment and not a winning environment, not a winning culture.

“Just trying to be a player that wants to win and puts forth whatever he has to to make sure that he's going to win in every setting.”

It feels like Wiggins has everything he’s looking for on this young, rising Thunder team. The Thunder, in turn, should do everything possible to keep him around for the long haul.

Want to join the discussion?Like Inside the Thunder on Facebookand follow us on Twitterto stay up to date on all the latest Thunder news. You can alsomeet the teambehind the coverage.