Andrew Wiggins has never been the player he was expected to be.
When he was coming out of Kansas, he was built up as a prodigy. Could he be the next LeBron James? That was the level of hype that followed him out of college.
And he wasn’t. He never will be, nor is anyone going to be the next LeBron.
With the immediate trade from Cleveland to Minnesota for Kevin Love, Wiggins was marooned on an island — nay, a forest — of suck. The Timberwolves knew failure and only failure.
Prior to this season, Minnesota had missed the playoffs in 16 of 17 years. He joined a team with a losing record for nine-straight seasons and was part of the first team in well over a decade to bring them to the playoffs.
If you look purely at his stats, he’s always been a productive player. He’s averaged 19.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game for his career.
But much of what made Wiggins such a frustrating player is that you saw the potential. You saw those moments. He has always had the ability to be an All-World player.
He’s never going to be that paragon of basketball excellence that he was built up to be. And while that pedestal was of the media’s creation, it always felt there should be something more there.
You always wondered what would happen if he got the opportunity to play for a real competitor. Would he show up in the playoffs?
There were moments this season when he left more questions than answers. He’d have those bursts of offensive aggression, then sink into the background, a common thread in some of those confounding Warriors losses.
Plenty have ripped him, myself included, for that propensity to take a back seat. Why doesn’t he just remain aggressive? His tendency towards deference was at times maddening.
But when the Warriors finally put the pieces together on the court at the same time in the playoffs — with Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson debuting together against Denver — it became immediately clear that Wiggins was the perfect complement.
Especially with Jordan Poole as the other point guard and scorer, it didn’t make sense for Wiggins to take on that sort of role.
Instead, he has done everything for the Warriors. He has been their No. 1 defender, doing an excellent job on whoever he’s had the brutal task of being matched up against.
He’s found buckets at just the right time, especially when they’re in the doldrums, often in a slashing role that allows the Warriors myriad facilitators to get him en route to the basket.
The physicality and athleticism he provides on the wing at a 6-foot-7 frame is absolutely crucial to a Golden State team that otherwise lacks it.
Their only other athletic wings are Jonathan Kuminga, who at age 19, has simply not proven reliable enough on either end to warrant significant minutes, and Juan Toscano-Anderson, who can play sound defense, but ignored two wide-open looks at the hoop in his first real minutes on Sunday.
In these playoffs, Wiggins has proven and re-proven his value on countless occasions.
While his All-Star starter status was joked about — understandably, given the online assist from K-Pop star BamBam — especially after a rough second half of the season that featured treacherous free throw shooting, he’s been the glue for this Warriors team.
And on Sunday, he was more than glue.
He was a reckoning, attacking the rim, glass and defensive assignments with a level of aggression that make him uniquely difficult to solve. The Mavericks, who are both unwilling and unable to match that physicality, did not solve him.
That persistence netted Wiggins a playoff career-high 27-point, 11-rebound, 3-assist night. And this was all after coming in with a sore foot that had him listed as questionable.
All of the criticisms he’s faced throughout his career disappeared on Sunday night. It was a culmination of so many things, but with 6:41 left in the fourth quarter, he cemented his playoff legacy.
That dunk.
I mean, that f**king dunk.
There were all of 10 people in the local sports bar I watched the game at. Everyone, myself included, stood up and ejected some guttural variation of “holy shit!”
The fact that referee Marc Davis had the unmitigated gall to deny it the true glory that comes with the extended bench reactions will be an ignominious distinction to it. To not have the wherewithal to leave that play alone and fall victim to a flop is embarrassing.
But because Steve Kerr, in the most heroic of moments, challenged and had the call overturned, everyone had the chance to watch the replay a couple dozen times.
In slo-mo. Super slo-mo. Whatever this magnificent version of -mo is:
It should be written into the next CBA that if a dunk makes the bench of the opposing team go, “oh no,” the dunk counts. Elbows, stiff arms, full on MMA combat should be allowed and encouraged if the dunk makes everyone in the arena feel like they just witnessed an assault vis-a-vis a poster.
Even Doncic appreciated it.
In that one moment, Wiggins was made whole.
No one’s joking about him being a bust, or failing to live up to whatever outside expectations were placed upon his shoulders. He is an ascendant force on a team almost certainly heading to the NBA Finals.
Wiggins, as much as anyone, has helped re-ignite the flame of this all too stubborn Warriors dynasty that wants at least one more.