Tony Wroten Jr. was a steal. Tony Wroten Jr. IS a steal. Although he may have played poorly since returning from injury his performance this season should not be taken lightly. It should be praised. The Sixers got Tony Wroten for nothing. Absolutely nothing. They gave a simple second round pick for the first rounder who was only one year removed from averaging 16.0 ppg as a freshman at The University of Washington.
Tony Wroten Jr. reaping the benefits of being a Sixer
In 12 games in January, it is safe to say that Wroten struggled. His stats fell off across the board, but this can be contributed to his injuries rather than him forgetting how to play the game. In those games, Wroten shot an ugly 34% from the field. That’s Ricky Rubio bad to put it into to perspective. With this drop off in scoring efficiency came the drop off in itself. He posted his first single digit average for a month this season (9.1 ppg).
Wroten seems to have turned the corner in February, however. Last Friday, he scored 16 points on 6-9 shooting from the field. In the previous three games he tallied 18 points in each of them. So far he’s followed up his worst month of the season with his best one yet. For the month, he’s averaging a stellar 17.5 ppg. The really exciting thing about this is that he’s doing this in only 27 mpg. That’s a high clip for someone who comes off the bench. Any Sixers fan should be genuinely excited about these recent performances.
The most telling number for Wroten, however, are the games he has started when Michael Carter-Williams is out. As a starter, Wroten has put up numbers comparable to MCW’s. In 12 games as a starter, he has broken lose for an average of 18.3 points a game. Those are essentially MCW scoring numbers yet he’s done this while scoring much more efficiently. I’m not saying he’s better than MCW (It’s not even close…), I’m just excited about his future in this league.
If this blog hasn’t excited you for Wroten, watch this. Yeah, the kid is the real deal. And we got him for free.
Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfNwSpkScU8
Stats from: http://espn.go.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/6630/tony-wroten
