Suitable for FRAMING
Wiggins puts Doncic on a poster, another sign of the Canadian’s ascent
It was the dunk of the NBA playoffs: Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors cocking back a tomahawk from the heavens that left his would-be defender, Dallas’s Luka Doncic, splayed helplessly on the hardwood.
And as has been the recurring storyline of Wiggins’s career, even after he unfurled the signature play of a Sunday-night victory that put the Warriors up 3-0 in the Western Conference final, a win away from the NBA Finals, somehow there were those left wanting more.
“I need some more antics at the end of that dunk,” Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA great turned TNT panelist, told Wiggins in a post-game TV interview. “Something. Smack your chest. Sing the Canadian national anthem. Or something.”
It wouldn’t be the first time in Wiggins’s career that, for all his gifts, he’s been accused, however playfully, of missing an essential piece of the puzzle. But nearly eight years after the 27-year-old from Vaughan was hyped as a can’t-miss star — taken No. 1 overall in the NBA draft before a succession of largely underwhelming seasons in Minnesota, where he fell short playing the role of franchise saviour — Wiggins has finally found himself in a situation more conducive to displaying his talents.
Playing alongside Golden State’s championship-hardened triumvirate of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, Wiggins, though he’s in the midst of his first season as an NBA all-star, is no longer miscast as a No. 1 option. Instead, he’s found an impressive niche as a defensive stalwart who has done his best to limit the production of the prodigious Doncic. Though Doncic is averaging an impressive 37.8 points a game in the Western final, Wiggins is a big reason he’s shooting 45 per cent from the field, the lowest percentage in a playoff series of Doncic’s young career.
Wiggins has been doing his part on the offensive end, too. Sunday’s 27-point outburst was a playoff career high and brought his scoring average in the Western final to 20.7 a game.
Not that the sample size is particularly large. Five weeks ago, before the Warriors began their quest to return to the NBA Finals for the first time since their 2019 loss to the Raptors, Wiggins had played all of five playoff games.
And it was only a couple of years ago, after Wiggins was traded by the Timberwolves to the Warriors at a fire-sale price that spoke to the perception that his laid-back demeanour was some irredeemable character flaw, that there were NBA voices questioning how the Canadian could help the Warriors.
“That’s a guy who has been criticized for being lackadaisical … yet on the biggest stage, he’s come through,” Green said after the Game 3 win. “It’s great to see, absolutely amazing to see him pick up his level of play.”
He’s picked up his play, to be sure. And on a team known for exacting an internal policing system ruth- lessly sheriffed by Green, maybe he didn’t have much of a choice. Still, in a year that began with Wiggins as a COVID-related question mark — he was vaccinated only after he did the math on potential lost wages on his $31.6-million (U.S.) salary and spoke of his quest to build “generational wealth” for his family — it’s safe to say he has exceeded most expectations.
With the Warriors now the bookmakers’ favourite to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy, Wiggins has a chance at another significant title: He could become the best Canadian player to win an NBA championship.
Steve Nash, widely regarded as the top Canadian player in history, never managed the feat. And given that Wiggins is one of just three Canadians to be an NBA all-star — Nash and Jamaal Magloire are the others, and Magloire never managed a title as a player, either — it stands to reason, should the Warriors win, that he will be passed the mantle currently occupied by Rick Fox. Fox, mind you, won three titles as a frequent starter for the Shaq-Kobe L.A. Lakers of the early 2000s.
But Fox, for all his rings, never reeled off the dunk of the NBA playoffs. And late Sunday night, jaws were still being pulled off the floor in the wake of Wiggins’s resounding statement — and not only because the initial call on the floor had it as an offensive foul, justly overturned by a coach’s challenge.
Curry said it was the best dunk he’d ever seen from a teammate. Thompson said it was reminiscent of Dominique Wilkins, the legendary purveyor of power slams. Even the vanquished had to bow to the majesty of the moment.
“That was impressive, not gonna lie,” Doncic said. “I saw the video again. I was like, ‘Oof.’ That was pretty incredible. I wish I had those bunnies.”
For all that, O’Neal and the TNT crew were left wanting more, a state of affairs with which Wiggins is no doubt accustomed.
While Wiggins quietly stood in for the interview, host Ernie Johnson riffed on the air walker’s unfortunate nickname.
“Maple Jordan. Maple Jordan … because he’s from Canada,” Johnson helpfully pointed out.
O’Neal, unsuccessful in his bid to get Wiggins to break into song, took the opportunity to reel off the closing bars of “O Canada” himself.
If you strained to hear it, somewhere in there Wiggins demurely injected a reply about his lack of post-dunk “antics.”
“I got a little flex in there,” Wiggins said.
On a night when he showed the world both his long-envied bunnies and an impressively resilient backbone, he certainly did.