Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins era was a roaring success despite some fan frustration
Andrew Wiggins lived up to the hype only when it mattered most.
The Warriors wing, who will be sent to Miami in a deal to bring Jimmy Butler to Golden State as the Warriors chase the embers of Steph Curry’s prime, has ridden a rollercoaster ride over his five-plus years in San Francisco.
The athleticism he showcased proved why he was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2014, but his impact on the game ebbed and flowed outside of the 2022 playoff run that resulted in a championship ring.
Wiggins arrived in early 2020, the product of a shrewd bit of business by the Warriors to turn Kevin Durant’s departure from the team into D’Angelo Russell, whom the Timberwolves were known to covet. Russell went to Minnesota, and Wiggins and the pick that became Jonathan Kuminga went to the Warriors. Now Wiggins is leaving in a deal struck after news broke that Durant didn’t want to return to the Bay.
Shortly after he arrived, the league shut down due to COVID and the Warriors, mired in a terrible season that started with Curry’s broken hand, missed the playoff bubble. The next season, he got his bearings on a play-in squad.
The year after, thanks to some creative marketing by the Warriors’ communications team who devised a partnership with K-Pop artist Bam Bam, he was named an All-Star for the first time. His scoring and rebounding ticked down, but his 3-point percentage was a career high at that time (39.3%).
Still, it wasn’t until the playoffs that he took the Warriors over the top. In the Western Conference Finals, his dunk over Luka Doncic was the defining moment of the series, letting the Mavericks know they would not climb out of a two-game deficit.
His rebounding leap during that playoff run was more impactful than any single play, though. Wiggins, who has never averaged more than 5.1 rebounds per game over a full season, averaged a whopping 7.5 through that playoff run and 8.8 in the NBA Finals.
Wiggins grabbed 16 rebounds in the Warriors’ gritty Game 4 win over the Celtics, then added 13 more in Game 5, when he also led the team with 26 points. Steph Curry’s 43-point outburst on the road in Game 4 is often credited with flipping that series from a 2-1 deficit to a 4-2 win, but Wiggins’ big-man turn and his lockdown defense on Jayson Tatum were vital to Golden State’s comeback.
He capped Game 5 with a drive-and-dunk over Tatum, then helped the Warriors glide to a Game 6 clincher in Boston and a parade down Market Street.
“You put in so much work, so much time, to make it here, and the end result is becoming a champion,” Wiggins told this news organization after Game 6.
He vowed that summer on former NBA guard Evan Turner’s podcast that he was “never averaging four rebounds again,” but he hasn’t topped five rebounds per game in any season since.
While Wiggins’ curious up-and-down play during the previous two seasons frustrated fans, there may have been valid reasons for it.
Wiggins missed the last 25 games of the 2022-23 regular season without a public explanation before returning for the playoffs. He missed another week for personal reasons late last season. The Warriors maintained that the matter was private, but when his father, former NBA player Mitchell Wiggins, passed away last summer, a gutting possible explanation for his absences was revealed.
Wiggins never reached those spring 2022 heights again for Golden State, and he may not in Miami, either, but the Warriors would not have won a fourth NBA Finals during this era without him.