“I remember ‘being’ Andrew Wiggins. I remember playing against Michael Jordan my first year in the league. So playing against Wiggins, seeing the baby face and all that stuff that has to get better with time… it was like watching a reflection of myself 19 years ago,” Kobe Bryant confessed to CBS Sports on December 15, 2014. The Los Angeles Lakers had just defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves, 100-94. Bryant added to his legend, surpassing Jordan as the third-highest scorer in regular season history. Wiggins was a rookie, in the words of Abraham Romero for the newspaper AS, “called to mark the next era in the league.”
‘The next big thing’, ‘the prospect’, ‘Maple Jordan’ or ‘Junior Jordan’. This is how Andrew Wiggins was referred to in the press and on social networks in 2014. At 19, he was a shooting guard with the ability to play forward, over two meters, who had averaged 17 points and almost 6 rebounds at the University of Kansas. In attack he was a threat thanks to his athleticism, his agility in the first step and his great shooting mechanics; on defense he was versatile and solid on the perimeter. All analysts agreed that he was among the top three draft picks, and they were right.
Picked No. 1 by the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Canadian came before Joel Embiid, Marcus Smart, Julius Randle, Zach LaVine or recently named MVP Nikola Jokic. Seen with perspective, it sounds surreal. At that time, he was not, and he showed it in his first season, which would not be with the Cavaliers jersey, but with the Timberwolves.
He became the second No. 1 pick in the draft, after Chris Webber in 1993, to be traded before making his debut. Cleveland wanted Kevin Love on his team to complete the ‘Big Three’ with Kyrie Irving and LeBron James. While they reached the Finals only to lose to the Warriors, Wiggins did not miss a single regular-season game and averaged 16.9 points and 4.6 rebounds. Despite the poor performance of the franchise, which also included LaVine, Ricky Rubio or an already veteran Kevin Garnett, the young Canadian was named Rookie of the Year, doubling the second, Nikola Mirotic, in the voting.
The following year, already with Karl-Anthony Towns in the squad, he raised his scoring to 20 points per game, and at the end of the 2016-17 season he reached an average of 23 points. His performance increased, his team level didn’t. At least not in the same proportion as him. They went from winning 16 games in Wiggins’ first year in the league to 31 in his third, still not enough to make the playoffs. The Timberwolves bet everything on the draft, but they weren’t able to surround the enormous talent of Wiggins, Towns and LaVine with the necessary players. They still have problems in this regard today.
In 2017 the decline of Andrew Wiggins began, coinciding with the arrival of Jimmy Butler in Minnesota. Despite all the strengths of his game and his athletic ability, many experts saw, since his college days, a big problem in him: his mentality. It was blamed on him that he was a mentally weak player, irregular, inconsistent and passive, especially in defense.
The last thing a person with his characteristics needed was to be joined with an explosive and tough character like Butler’s. The relationship did not work from the beginning and the bomb ended up exploding in September 2018 because of the Canadian’s brother, who, after Butler’s interest in leaving the Timberwolves became public, wrote “Hallelujah” on his Twitter account. .
Until 2020, Wiggins did not return to averaging 20 points per game, also lowering his scoring percentage. The pressure of having to meet expectations that had been imposed on him since before arriving in the league, together with the inexperience of the Minnesota squad and poor management when it came to surrounding young talent, ended up making the star of the University of Kansas an apathetic, insensitive player who seemed uninterested in basketball.
However, on February 6, 2020, his career took a radical turn. The Timberwolves were looking for a change and the Golden State Warriors did not have D’Angelo Russell as an important piece for the future. In this way, they were exchanged, along with other secondaries and some draft picks. No one was expecting big things from Wiggins anymore, but he turned out to be the complement the dwindling Warriors needed.
He played 12 games that season with his new team and averaged 19.4 points without the company of the Splash Brothers. In his first full year in San Francisco, conditioned by the pandemic, but with Curry already recovered, he scored 18.6 points and grabbed almost 5 rebounds per game. Although they did not manage to enter the playoffs, falling in the play in against Ja Morant’s Grizzlies, the Warriors were emerging as a threat for this season, waiting for the recovery of Klay Thompson.
The threat was fulfilled and San Francisco just got ahead in the 2022 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics, one of the most defensively demanding teams the Warriors have faced in their previous five Finals. In a strange season, in which most of the big title contenders were in the Eastern Conference, the Canadian player found his place and served as the perfect complement to support Curry, Klay, Green and a surprising Poole on their way to the glory. He earned his first All-Star appearance and his Finals debut.
In the absence (not physical, but spiritual) of Curry, Wiggins took on the challenge of leading his team to make it 3-2 in the series at home, bring them closer to the ring and show that the Golden State Warriors dynasty is not yet is over. When there was no longer any expectation placed on his career, he freed himself and now he is more comfortable and excited than ever.
