Before being discharged to the Warriors in a deadline deal, before being called “lazy” and “overpaid”, before being booed by the crowd, Andrew Wiggins offered a dysfunctional franchise a reason to hope again.
It was April 2015 and Wiggins had just received his 2014-15 Rookie of the Year award. As he leaned back on a black leather sofa in the bowels of the Target Center, Wiggins – two months before his 20th birthday – told reporters, “I hope to be here forever”.
Those five words led some Timberwolves fans to daydream about Wiggins leading a joke across the league back to national relevance. What really happened – another 4 ½ seasons defined by defeats, infighting and Wiggins’ inefficiency – was much less pleasant. Now, a quarter of his first full season with the Warriors, Wiggins again believes he has found his longtime home in the NBA.
Asked on Monday night whether he would like to end his career at Golden State, Wiggins said: “I would love to. It’s a great organization. They treat me with love and respect here, they treat my family well. I don’t see why not. I would love to.”
After struggling to be the face of a dysfunctional Minnesota franchise, Wiggins found a stable environment with the Warriors. Companions praise his humble and discreet approach. Since being challenged in the preseason to play on an All-Defensive-team, he has emerged as a perimeter limiter capable of making life difficult in the top wings of the league.
Long mocked for his selection of questionable pitches, hustle and basketball IQ, Wiggins is setting career records in percentage of field goals (46.2), percentage of 3 points (40.7) and blocks (1.6) . In his first game against his former team on Monday, he showed the Timberwolves the difference a change of scenery can make, smothering Malik Beasley in the final stretch, while Wiggins ended up with 23 points from 10 to 19 (2 for 5 out of 3 points), six rebounds (all offensive), three steals and three blocks in 30 minutes.
Perhaps more important than Wiggins’ line of statistics in that 130-108 victory over Minnesota, however, was how he managed it. In constant motion, he worked off-screen to find open looks. During the action lulls, Wiggins, an introvert who called himself, joked and laughed with his teammates.
“I was excited,” said Wiggins. “It was good to play against my old team, obviously. They still have some guys from when I was there. It was good to see them, catch up and compete. “
Moments earlier, Stephen Curry told reporters he was looking forward to seeing what Wiggins would say about facing the wolves. Wiggins’ soft talk, though marked for the Canadian in good manners, did not carry the animosity that some might expect from someone who was once the scapegoat for Minnesota’s problems.
Even when Wiggins – the No. 1 pick in the 2014 Kansas NBA draft – was named the Rookie of the Year after averaging 16.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists, he made critics question his intelligence , character and work ethic. The negative feedback only expanded when he signed a $ 147 million five-year contract extension in October 2017.
With Jimmy Butler dominating the ball, Wiggins spent much of the next two seasons perched along the perimeter while waiting for an opportunity to kick. Some nights, when his clattering jumpers started to rise, Wiggins could hear Timberwolves fans booing him.
Toward the end of Wiggins’ tenure in Minnesota, it was fashionable to blame him for the team’s problems. In March 2019, deadspin.com published an article with the title: “Andrew Wiggins is one of the worst scorers in NBA history”. Seven months later, SB Nation published an article declaring that Wiggins “has lost all hope of greatness”.
These narratives failed to explain Wiggins’ unenviable circumstances. He played for four different head coaches, each with their own systems and philosophies, during his 5 and a half seasons with the Timberwolves. Many days, Wiggins had a hard time understanding what the organization wanted from him.
“It’s different, because everything here is organized,” said Wiggins of the Warriors. “You know what you’re doing every night. You know what you’re getting into. You know the minutes you’re going to play. You know your rotation. “
Wiggins (8,710 points) is the Timberwolves’ second-best scorer ever, after Kevin Garnett, but his legacy in Minnesota is that of an athlete who has not come close to maximizing his physical tools. Basketball historians look back on his Timberwolves days and identify what he not accomplish.
For someone with his size and athleticism, Wiggins was not much of a lob or rebound threat. His defense was so erratic at one point that FiveThirtyEight.com ranked him as the NBA’s “least defensive player”. Forced to trust Wiggins, the Timberwolves were 174-286 combined and made it to the playoffs only once – an elimination in the first round in 2018, in which Houston defeated them in five games.
When the Warriors acquired Wiggins in February, along with two future choices for a package that included D’Angelo Russell, they bet on putting Wiggins in successful positions. It helped Golden State to realize that it would only need him to be a better version of Harrison Barnes – a striker who was able to play outside the ball, work hard on defense and score three points.
After Klay Thompson suffered an Achilles injury at the end of the season in November, the Warriors suddenly had to rely on Wiggins as a worthy number 2 option for Curry and a blocking perimeter defender. On the training ground, coaches often pulled Wiggins into face-to-face conversations, detailing what was expected of him and reminding him that they believed him.
This was what Wiggins missed most early in his career. His problem in Minnesota was not that he could not produce, but rather that he did not think the organization had equipped him to prosper as the focal point of the offensive.
With the Warriors, Wiggins are free to take advantage of the spacing Curry offers, act as an occasional game creator for the second unit, and stop shooting on defense. In the last five games, he is shooting at 54.7% of the field, including 50% or more in four of those games. Wiggins’ 28 blocks this season were seventh in the NBA as of Monday.
“Andrew played an extremely necessary role,” said coach Steve Kerr. “Role totally different from what Minnesota was asking him for.
“I always say that there are maybe 10 or 15 players in the league who determine the circumstances of a team. The other 450 are victims or people who stand out based on their circumstances. I think that with Andrew, our circumstances are perfect. “
Contrary to what the NBA forums may suggest, the Warriors are not trying to trade Wiggins for a wing of the All-Star caliber by the deadline. They see it as their long-term response, to say the least.
As for Wiggins? He expects to be at the Golden State forever – or at least until he retires well into his 30s.
“It is very positive here, very positive,” said Wiggins. “Everyone is doing well. No egos, none of that. Everyone just wants to win. … It’s all about love here. “
Connor Letourneau is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Con_Chron