Getty Golden State Warriors star Andrew Wiggins warms up prior to Game 5 of the 2022 Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.
Klay Thompson’s two-year journey back from a torn ACL and a ruptured Achilles to help his team get to the NBA Finals may take the cake as the Golden State Warriors‘ ultimate comeback tale, but Andrew Wiggins‘ story is definitely a close second.
After continually falling short of expectations in Minnesota, the former No. 1 overall pick earned his first All-Star nod with the Warriors in 2022, then went on to play a key role in their Western Conference Finals win over the Dallas Mavericks.
As a result, fans and hoops pundits alike have been raving about Wiggins’ evolving game, praising the baller for making the big jump this season. However, not everyone is willing to go along with that narrative.
For their part, retired sharpshooter turned ESPN analyst JJ Redick and WNBA legend Sue Bird have a slightly different take on what has occurred with Wiggins.
Redick Sounds Off on Wiggins’ Evolution
On the May 27 episode of Redick’s podcast, The Old Man and the Three, the old marksman and Bird both quibbled with the notion that Wiggins had found another gear as a shooter/scorer. Instead, Redick opined that the 27-year-old had simply settled into his proper role.
“I appreciate the narrative that Andrew Wiggins has taken the leap — he has not taken a leap,” Redick declared. “Is Andrew Wiggins a better player than he was in Minnesota? Yes. The reason he’s a better player is because he’s starring in his role. He’s maximizing his role.”
At his height with the Wolves, Wiggins averaged a cool 23.6 points per contest. However, his effective field goal percentage that year was a ho-hum 48.4. Flash forward to 2021-22 and his scoring average dipped to its lowest point in four years at 17.2 PPG, but his EFG% checked in at a healthy 54.3 mark.
During the Dubs’ postseason run, his scoring has dropped further to 15.8 PPG. But his team has outscored opponents by a whopping 10.2 points per 100 possessions when he has been on the floor, the No. 1 mark among Warriors starters.
“He was miscast as a primary scorer, primary shot creator,” Redick opined. “If you were saying the leap from that to an efficient primary shot-creator, like, he hasn’t made that leap. What he has done is made the leap to starring in his role as a third or fourth guy… He has not morphed himself into this efficient volume scorer — the opposite of what he was — he’s found the right fit for him.”
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Bird Weighs In
For her part, Bird — who’s a five-time Olympic gold medalist, a four-time champion with the Seattle Storm and the seventh-leading scorer in WNBA history — similarly expressed that Wiggins has simply settled into his lane after being incorrectly pegged as the go-to guy for several years in Minnesota.
“Sometimes less is more for certain players,” Bird said. “I think efficiency is obviously where this conversation lives… It’s not easy to be a role player, to be asked to fulfill a role and to be super-efficient in it because you never get more than what you’re gonna get.”
Clearly, though, she believes that Wiggins has been successful in doing so
“I think anyone who can come in and, in a low-volume way, be efficient — that to me is the winning recipe.”
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