Kurtenbach: Andrew Wiggins’ insane dunk on Luka Dončić will forever change his reputation

Andrew Wiggins' highlight dunk over Luka shows how far he has come as a player and how close the Warriors are to another title.

There are two Andrew Wigginses.

There is the Wiggins that existed before his fourth-quarter dunk on Luka Dončić Sunday night in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, and the Wiggins that emerged from the play that will prove to be the definitive highlight of the Warriors’ run to a sixth Western Conference Championship in eight years.

If you have been paying attention to the Warriors this postseason, you know that there is no actual difference between these two Wigginses — just as you’ll know the Warriors are one win away from the NBA Finals after the wing’s 27 point performance in a 109-100 victory in Dallas.

But the change is not of the player himself, but rather the perception of him.

The playoffs are where reputations are cemented and legacies created.

Yes, most of the folks having these fanciful conversations aren’t actually watching the games, but we know they’ll see the highlight of Wiggins taking off from just past the bottom of the free-throw circle, elevating a level (or two) above the rim, snatching Dončić’s soul on the way up and two points for the Dubs on the way down.

The dunk won’t be part of the first line of Wiggins’ basketball obituary, but it will be the first thing that people will see when they search him on Google or YouTube — and isn’t that a bigger deal?

Don’t see this as an erasure of Wiggins’ all-around great play. One play might get all the shine, but the highlight does, indeed, highlight the other aspects of Wiggins’ game.

Wiggins has deserved to be viewed in a different light for a long time now.

His dunk on Sunday night will make sure that happens.

“He’s got a couple of posters this [postseason],” Warriors forward Draymond Green said after the game. “That one was on Luka, so it means more. When you get a poster on a superstar like that, it just means a little bit more.”

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr isn’t lying when he says that his team would be “dead” without Wiggins this postseason.

The NBA playoffs demand many things of a player that the regular season doesn’t.

Two-way play is paramount to postseason success. As Dončić can attest, it doesn’t matter how many points you can score if you can’t stop anyone on the other side of the court.

Shot creation is critical as well, but the ability to take and make tough shots looms even larger.

There’s one position on the court that, when played at its best, can do all these things. Wings are worth their weight in gold in the playoffs. There’s a reason that it’s been 15 years since a point guard won NBA Finals MVP.

But the playoffs are also a spot where weaknesses are exposed. In the regular season, teams are just trying to get to their jet in one piece — the 82 games all blend together and coaches are only focusing on their teams. In the playoffs, coaches are focusing not on their team, but on what the other team cannot do. The good ones will ruthlessly attack those weaknesses 50 straight possessions if no adjustment is made.

All this to say that there are 82-game players and 16-win players and there’s a big difference between the two.

It looked obvious, at least to me, in the first game this postseason that Wiggins was a 16-win player who had waited eight seasons to finally play in a true high-stakes playoff series.

He was doing all the little things that affect winning — his rebounding, in particular, was immense for a team that was small in its first two series.

But he was doing the big things, too. He’s averaged 20 points per game in this series against the Mavericks and has been Dončić’s primary defender, as well.

“It’s amazing to see it happen under the bright lights,” Curry said of Wiggins. “He’s stepping up.”

I can attest firsthand that calling Wiggins a 16-win player a month ago was considered a hot take. After all, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft had a seemingly indelible reputation around the league as overrated, overpaid and underperforming.

Wiggins has played downright outstanding basketball for the Warriors in stretches since he was traded to Golden State in 2020, but that reputation would not go away. Any time Wiggins would have a strong run of form — every time it looked like he had turned a corner in his career — inconsistency and passive play would creep back in and the reputation would be pointed to again.

Of course, there was constant improvement and refinement of Wiggins’ game amid the peaks and valleys. He was an All-Star starter this season, but that was dismissed as ballot-box stuffing. He would have truly brilliant games, only for them to be dismissed as one-offs or byproducts of playing with the Warriors.

This was no longer the “same old Wiggs” but, fair or not, he could not shake the rep. Expectations for a player that is athletically gifted and overtly talented — a player who was nicknamed Maple Jordan before he entered the league — would never be anything less than sky-high.

He had to go just as high Sunday night to show the world that he has become an outstanding, winning NBA player.

The Warriors already knew what Wiggins had become. Those who paid attention had figured it out. But now the whole basketball world should know.

Wiggins is a man of many nicknames, but one has become most fitting at the most appropriate time: Two-Way Wiggs has the Warriors only one win away from the NBA Finals, five from a title.