Right on time, Wiggins playing like an All-star for the Warriors
Something clicked for Andrew Wiggins a month ago.
The Warriors’ wing’s explosion — 35 points, 74 percent shooting, a monstrous slam — against his former team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, on Nov. 10 was anything but normal.
Sure, Wiggins had posted big games before in his eight-year NBA career. But they were oneoffs, fleeting glimpses of his immense talent that teased more than inspired.
Not this one, though. Because since that game against the Timberwolves, after which Warriors general manager
Bob Myers joked that he didn’t know Wiggins could do “that”, he’s played like, well, that.
Wiggins won’t be an All-star this season. Not in the Western Conference.
But he’s playing like an AllStar — a reliable and confident option for the Dubs on both ends of the floor.
He’s fully activated and fully actualizing those lofty goals that have been — fairly or not — put on his talented shoulders since before he went to Kansas as a one-and-done player.
He’s no Kevin Durant. Not even close. So the Warriors aren’t asking him to be this season.
All they only want him to be a tenacious on-ball defender, a constant mover on offense, and a solid catch-and-shoot option to space the floor for Steph Curry.
In short, a better version of the 2014-2016 Harrison Barnes.
And Wiggins is doing all of that with his trademark ease.
Since that huge game against Minnesota, Wiggins has gone for 25-plus points five more times, including Monday night in a spectacular performance — he was 8-of-10 from behind the arc — in
the Warriors' blowout win over the Orlando Magic.
In all, over his last 14 games, Wiggins is averaging 21 points per game on a hyper-efficient 52 percent shooting. He's made 47 percent of his five 3-point attempts per game during that stretch.
Add in his stellar defense — he has a defensive rating of 99.3 since Minnesota — and he has the NBA'S sixth-best net rating of highminute players over the last month.
His peers at the top of that chart? Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, dramatically underrated point guards Jrue Holiday and Patty Mills, and Curry.
That's an elite class of two-way players — guys every competent organization would want on their team.
Not bad for a guy who was deemed to have the worst contract in the NBA before he arrived in San Francisco.
Wiggins' emergence makes it so that the Warriors can afford a bad night — or two — from Curry. They can handle Jordan Poole having a poor shooting night, like the one he had on Monday.
There's another viable offensive option: The shots might not always fall, but the Warriors are rightly trusting Wiggins to be active and aggressive on the offensive end as of late.
The biggest difference for Wiggins over the last few weeks has been his
catch-and-shoot game.
Last year, his first full season with the Warriors and serious time alongside Steph Curry, Wiggins had 3.7 catchand-shoot attempts per game and he knocked down 38.7 percent of those shots.
That's a whole lot of meh for a player with such a nice shooting stroke.
This season, before the Minnesota game, Wiggins had upped the catch-andshoot attempts to 4 per game. The shooting percentage, though, was in the same ballpark — 37 percent.
The shot looked stiff, forced, a bit robotic.
But since Nov. 10, Wiggins is getting up an extra catch
and-shoot opportunity every two games and is knocking down 46 percent of those shots — all 3-pointers.
In turn, he has a better effective field goal percentage on catch-and-shoot opportunities than Curry.
That won't last. This is a cold streak for Wardell.
But Wiggins' hot streak might have staying power. The confidence and fluidity of his shot — his willingness to rise and fire in recent games — hints that this form might last for a long, long time. Folks have been fooled before, but this is no longer a small sample size. This form might just be the new normal for Wiggins.
So while the Warriors will only have two All-stars in Cleveland this season — Curry and Draymond Green — Wiggins, if he indeed keeps this up, might just make a run at No. 3. He at least will deserve a conversation at the ballot box.
Oh, and in that period of time, another Warriors AllStar and arguably the greatest catch-and-shoot professional of all time should re-enter the fold.
Klay Thompson on one wing, Wiggins on the other? I once didn't think it possible, but that has the makings of a deadly combination for the Warriors heading into the meat of the season.