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Kendra Andrews, ESPNNov 4, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
GATHERED AT THE Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas during summer league, the Golden State Warriors held one of their first offseason workouts. The workouts were often quiet, usually consisting of individual, one-on-one drills.
But in mid-July, practice was the different. It was loud with live action.
Every Warriors coach except Steve Kerr attended, and several players, including Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins, participated.
For a portion of the session, coaches guarded the players, and with no one acting as a referee to call any fouls, play got chippy and physical. As Wiggins sized up one of the coaches defending him, he bolted along the baseline, spun around the next defender and rose for a dunk.
Then he did it two more times.
“It was like, ‘Oh, s—,'” Warriors assistant coach Jacob Rubin told ESPN. “That was the moment this summer a lot of other people were able to see that he was on a different level. … It was like ‘Yup, I’m here, I’m here.’ You could feel it in the building.”
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Wiggins had been waiting to make that statement for a while. He missed 56 games over the past two seasons as he cared for his ailing father, Mitchell, who died in July. And when he was able to play, he struggled through two of the worst seasons of his career.
So Wiggins spent the summer traveling between Houston and San Francisco, working with a personal trainer and Warriors assistant coach Jacob Rubin. He practiced ballhandling, shooting, closeout shots and driving and finishing at the rim. Wiggins and Rubin worked out seven days a week for about two hours each day. Some days, it was workouts with four to five other coaches playing with them. Other days, it was focusing on technique and skill development.
“It was really just about polishing up everything I know I can already do,” Wiggins told ESPN.
Coming off two years he considers underperforming, Wiggins knew he had to be prepared, even before training camp began.
“We had to be able to read where he’s at,” Rubin said. “There was a time over the summer where he still had his dad but that didn’t mean every day was good. It meant some days were more difficult. It was about being able to switch it up and being able to have fun and say you know what, what we had planned for today might not be it. Let’s change it.”
All of their offseason work led to Wiggins arriving at camp in peak shape, but he ended up missing the Warriors’ entire time in Hawaii and their first three preseason games due to an illness. Still, the Warriors remain confident Wiggins can return to the form that helped them win a title in 2022.
“It looks like he’s primed to have a hell of a season,” Kerr said.
With Klay Thompson‘s departure to the Dallas Mavericks, the Warriors desperately need Wiggins to regain his All-Star form as they fight to find a new identity with their retooled roster.
Wiggins wants to prove he is still an elite player.
“I want to do right by them,” Wiggins said. “It feels so good when they have that confidence in you, when they have that high praise. You want to show up for them.”
Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins is averaging 18.5 points on 51% shooting through four games this season. He missed two games with a lower back strain, but returned to the lineup on Sunday. Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images
IT WAS THE middle of February 2023 when Wiggins was first listed as inactive for personal reasons. What was first treated as a day-to-day absence turned into Wiggins missing the final 25 games of the regular season.
The Warriors gave Wiggins permission to be away from the team, not putting any pressure on him to return before he felt he was ready, even as they found themselves in a tight battle to earn a top-six playoff spot and avoid the play-in tournament. As questions grew about Wiggins’ extended absence, the Warriors kept the public messaging concise: His personal matter remained private.
“Every guy is different, and Wiggs is a very private person,” Kerr said. “I think it’s important to let him know that we care about him and then give him his space. He’s a guy who needed his space.”
Wiggins returned for the 2023 playoffs, coming off the bench in Golden State’s postseason opener, then starting the remaining 12 games. He played in 71 games in 2023-24, missing a week in late February 2024 for personal reasons. But even during the times Wiggins was with the team, he didn’t seem like himself.
“It’s been a tough two-year stretch,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told ESPN. “He got off to such an amazing start in 2022, he was an All-Star the year before, a champion and then when his dad got sick it really derailed him.”
Wednesday, Nov. 6
Warriors at Celtics, 7:30 p.m.
76ers at Clippers, 10 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 8
Suns at Mavericks, 7:30 p.m.
76ers at Lakers, 10 p.m.
All times Eastern
During the 2021-22 season, Wiggins averaged 17.2 points and made 157 3-pointers — most in his career. But in the two years following his All-Star campaign, Wiggins averaged 14.6 points on 46% shooting, including a career-low 13.2 points in the 2023-24 season.
On defense, he held opponents to a career best 40% shooting as the contesting defender on the way to the championship in 2022. But in 2022-23 and 2023-24, that jumped to 45%, as the Warriors defense slipped from the league’s best in 2021-22 to middle of the pack the following two seasons.
“Life doesn’t stop just because the game is going on,” Green told ESPN. “For most of us, basketball is a safe place. So when things are going on, you try to dive into the game. But sometimes when you do that, it doesn’t work and it just feels worse. You have to find that balance. For him, to have kids, to have his significant other, those things help. Sometimes, as much as you are around people, it can be a lonely job.”
Since Wiggins’ father’s death, Kerr believes there’s a sense of peace for Wiggins as he enters the new season.
“I think he’s in a place where he knows the last couple years have been tough for a lot of reasons,” Kerr said, “and I think he’s primed to get back to where he was a couple years ago.
“He’s at the age where he’s right in his physical prime, and we’ve seen him do it. He helped us win a championship. I’m expecting a big year from Wiggs.”
Wiggins is playing in honor of his father, who played six seasons in the NBA before becoming a three-time All-Star in Greece. The former No. 1 overall pick has a plethora of memories on and off the court he is carrying close to his heart.
“Oh man, there are so many moments,” Wiggins told ESPN, a grin spreading across his face as he looked around an empty T-Mobile Arena ahead of a preseason contest against the Los Angeles Lakers. “But, I’m a pretty private guy. So I’m going to keep them to myself.”
STEPHEN CURRY DISHED the ball over his shoulder without looking early in the third quarter of the Warriors home opener against the LA Clippers. It found Wiggins, who was waiting just outside the 3-point arc.
Wiggins pump-faked as James Harden closed on him, then he brought the ball down and made a jab into the paint. He split three defenders and then leaped for a dunk.
That positioning, decision-making and aggressiveness is what Wiggins worked on all summer.
“I feel really good,” Wiggins said. “I feel like I got a really good summer of work … every day I was grinding, trying to push up my game, get stronger and just back to the old me.”
Wiggins opened the season as Kerr’s starting shooting guard with Curry in the backcourt, taking the place of Thompson. A lower back strain forced him to miss a pair of games against the New Orleans Pelicans, but he returned to the lineup Saturday — though alongside a different group of players, as injuries have already forced Kerr to four different starting lineups this season. Still, he hopes Wiggins will be a mainstay, especially as the team tries to make up for the nine 3-pointers per game Thompson attempted last season.
“We want him shooting a lot of 3s — he’s worked hard on his shooting. It’s free throws, we want him to get to the line. We’ve got to put him in the position to do all of that,” Kerr said. “But he’s done this before. He’s been a 20-point scorer before.”
Through four games, Wiggins is averaging 18.5 points on 51% shooting, including 56.5% from 3, and 5.8 rebounds in 26.8 minutes. His 5.8 3-point attempts per game would be the third-highest mark of his career.
Often, Wiggins will be asked to take on the defensive assignment of the opponent’s best scorer and wing. Wiggins is no stranger to that role, as he filled in for Thompson as he recovered from injury and helped lead the Warriors to a title in 2022 as a secondary scorer and lockdown defender.
That year, Green and former assistant coach Mike Brown, now the head coach with the Sacramento Kings, told Wiggins that he would be defending the top player every night. That kind of accountability helped fuel his game.
“It was encouraging for me — them putting that kind of responsibility on my shoulders,” Wiggins said. “I wanted to succeed. I wanted to do good by my team and give them every chance to win that I could. I feel like that’s what really got me going.”
Wiggins arrived in Golden State in 2020 wanting to reward the Warriors for believing in him. He opens this season hoping to reward their faith with a second ring.
“Any time you get traded, you want to prove them wrong,” Wiggins said. “You want to prove that you are an asset to this team now, and you want to change the narrative that people think about you. You put your head down and just get to work.”
