Getty Andrew Wiggins, Warriors, dunking over Karl-Anthony Towns of the Timberwolves
The Warriors, certainly, have seen flashes from Andrew Wiggins before, since trading for him at the NBA trade deadline in 2020. He scored 24 points, on just 12 shots, in his Warriors debut after arriving from Minnesota, and registered games of 40 and 38 points in wins last season. He’s a high-powered scorer, and whatever the faults in his game, there’s no question he can get buckets.
But there does seem to be something different about Wiggins this season. He’s been more confident, and seems to be getting accustomed to playing for a surefire playoff team for just the second time in his career—what’s more, he has seemed to care about basketball more than at any time in his career, spurred on by one key moment that took place almost two weeks ago.
That was the opinion coming from veteran Warriors reporter Marcus Thompson on Bill Simmons’ podcast on The Ringer. Thompson pointed out that Wiggins had a slow start because of an ongoing knee injury, but has left that well in the past.
“The last few weeks,” Thompson said, “it started with Minnesota where he dunked on Karl-Anthony Towns, he had an extra level in that game and he said, yo, I’m gonna keep it. He has, he’s been aggressive.”
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Wiggins’ Stats Have Exploded Over Last 7 Games
There is no doubt that Wiggins has been a different player in the last seven games, going back to the win over the Timberwolves in which he scored 35 points, including that very emphatic dunk. He has averaged 24.0 points, 4.3 rebounds and 56.1% shooting since then, making 40.5% of his 3-pointers.
Andrew Wiggins had 22 points on 9/9 FG in the first half tonight, capped by THIS dunk on KAT. Seems like he gets up for games against his former team.
In 10 games before that, Wiggins averaged 15.6 points, 4.3 rebounds, 43.5% shooting and 33.3% 3-point shooting. Thompson suggested that the reason for Wiggins’ upward trend has been the way the players around he and Curry have performed. He said:
I think he has the space to kind of do his thing. It’s not him and Steph and a bunch of dudes who can’t shoot. It’s hard to clog the paint on this team. So he’s like, getting to the basket—I’ve never seen him this good on offense and defense at the same time. He had been consistently good on defense and the offense kind of comes and goes.
Now when Steph steps out of the game, Wiggins is like, let me take over and they’ve been begging for this. They’ve been wanting this so bad, like, Wiggins, just take over, just do you, when Steph sits, you got six minutes to just be in your own universe and this is your team. He is kind of doing it now and it’s a problem.
At Last, Wiggins Seems to Care
Simmons pointed to something else that is going on with Wiggins—he seems energized by the fact that he is playing for an elite team. One of the knocks on Wiggins for the length of his eight seasons in the NBA has been that he lacks the drive to work to get better and remain aggressive.
That has not appeared to be an issue lately.
“He’s had a couple of best-guy-on-the-floor games,” Simmons said. “And it seems like this is the closest we’ve been to what we expected in 2014 when he was the first pick in the draft. This is a two-way guy, he’s an incredible athlete and he can shoot. The only question was, did he care? It seems like the DNA of the Warriors, I don’t know if they put in an IV and they’re injecting it in him, but he seems like he cares this year.”