Comparing Andrew Wiggins to LeBron James is patently unfair to the Kansas freshman.
Especially since James is on record saying, “I want to be the greatest of all time. And that’s my motivation…. It’s not simple, but for me it is. That’s my mindframe.”
Yet in this day and age, comparisons between James and Wiggins will inevitably be made.
So LeBron has a word of advice for the 6-foot-8 Wiggins amid all the hype.
“Just try to be the best student and the best teammate and the best player you can be every day,” James told Rock Chalk Blog. “Don’t try to prove anything to no one. Obviously, his future is bright, but you can’t live today and worry about the future. You got to live in the present. The only thing he should concentrate on is being a great student and being a great basketball player for his team and everything else will take care of itself.”
Wiggins graces the cover of the current SI and is projected as the No. 1 pick in next year’s NBA Draft, yet he knows full well comparisons to guys like LeBron and Kevin Durant are way too premature at this point.
“I’m just trying to find my game,” Wiggins told Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News. “Coming from high school to college doesn’t seem like that big a jump, but it’s a big jump. I’m just trying to get my mind right, see what kind of player I am as a college player. Being a high school player and a college player are two totally different things.
“I just want to be the best I can be. I don’t think being compared to LeBron is fair, people like that, of that caliber – they’re the best in the world, and I haven’t played one college game yet. So I think that’s unfair to really compare me to people at that high a level right now.
“But it’s like fuel to the fire. I want to be the best. I want to be able to be compared to him, but right now I’m at the stage where I’m still learning.”
**For more on the projected 3-company sneaker war for Wiggins’s services, click here.
**For previous articles on Andrew Wiggins, click here.
Photo: Kansas Athletics
