Kurtenbach: Right on time, Andrew Wiggins is playing like an All-Star
for the Warriors
Golden State Warriors: Andrew Wiggins has been one of the NBA's best
players over the last month of the season. He's even shooting better
than Steph Curry.
>SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 6: Golden State Warriors’ Andrew
Wiggins (22) scores a 3-point basket in front of Golden State Warriors’
Stephen Curry (30) against the Orlando Magic in the third quarter at the
Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (Nhat V.
Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
>SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 6: Golden State Warriors’ Andrew
Wiggins (22) scores a 3-point basket in front of Golden State Warriors’
Stephen Curry (30) against the Orlando Magic in the third quarter at the
Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (Nhat V.
Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
By DIETER KURTENBACH | dkurtenbach@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News
Group
PUBLISHED: December 7, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. | UPDATED: December 7, 2021 at
1:34 p.m.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/12/07/kurtenbach-right-on-time-andrew-wiggins-is-playing-like-an-all-star-for-the-warriors/

Something clicked for Andrew Wiggins a month ago.

The Warriors’ wing’s explosion — 35 points, 74 percent shooting, a
monstrous slam — against his former team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, on
Nov. 10 was anything but normal.

Sure, Wiggins had posted big games before in his eight-year NBA career.
But they were one-offs, fleeting glimpses of his immense talent that
teased more than inspired.

Not this one, though.

[video: Wiggins shocks entire Warriors bench after destro...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmLk9EhqxrU]

Because since that game against the Timberwolves, after which Warriors
general manager Bob Myers joked that he didn’t know Wiggins could do
“that”, he’s played like, well, that.

Wiggins won’t be an All-Star this season. Not in the Western Conference.

But he’s playing like an All-Star — a reliable and confident option for
the Dubs on both ends of the floor.

He’s fully activated and fully actualizing those lofty goals that have
been — fairly or not — put on his talented shoulders since before he
went to Kansas as a one-and-done player.

He’s no Kevin Durant. Not even close. So the Warriors aren’t asking him
to be this season.

All they only want him to be a tenacious on-ball defender, a constant
mover on offense, and a solid catch-and-shoot option to space the floor
for Steph Curry.

In short, a better version of the 2014-2016 Harrison Barnes.

And Wiggins is doing all of that with his trademark ease.

[video: Wiggins career-high 8 threes 28 pts full hig...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMVPLmGrNU]

Since that huge game against Minnesota, Wiggins has gone for 25-plus
points five more times, including Monday night in a spectacular
performance — he was 8-of-10 from behind the arc — in the Warriors’
blowout win over the Orlando Magic.

In all, over his last 14 games, Wiggins is averaging 21 points per game
on a hyper-efficient 52 percent shooting. He’s made 47 percent of his
five 3-point attempts per game during that stretch.

Add in his stellar defense — he has a defensive rating of 99.3 since
Minnesota — and he has the NBA’s sixth-best net rating of high-minute
players over the last month.

His peers at the top of that chart? Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert,
dramatically underrated point guards Jrue Holiday and Patty Mills, and
Curry.

That’s an elite class of two-way players — guys every competent
organization would want on their team.

Not bad for a guy who was deemed to have the worst contract in the NBA
before he arrived in San Francisco.

Wiggins’ emergence makes it so that the Warriors can afford a bad night
— or two — from Curry. They can handle Jordan Poole having a poor
shooting night, like the one he had on Monday.

There’s another viable offensive option: The shots might not always
fall, but the Warriors are rightly trusting Wiggins to be active and
aggressive on the offensive end as of late.

[video: Wiggins defensive highlights | Nov, 2021 | 2021-2...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmflDmgpv3I]

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The biggest difference for Wiggins over the last few weeks has been his
catch-and-shoot game.

Last year, his first full season with the Warriors and serious time
alongside Steph Curry, Wiggins had 3.7 catch-and-shoot attempts per game
and he knocked down 38.7 percent of those shots.

That’s a whole lot of meh for a player with such a nice shooting stroke.

This season, before the Minnesota game, Wiggins had upped the
catch-and-shoot attempts to 4 per game. The shooting percentage, though,
was in the same ballpark — 37 percent.

The shot looked stiff, forced, a bit robotic.

But since Nov. 10, Wiggins is getting up an extra catch-and-shoot
opportunity every two games and is knocking down 46 percent of those
shots — all 3-pointers.

In turn, he has a better effective field goal percentage on
catch-and-shoot opportunities than Curry.

That won’t last. This is a cold streak for Wardell.

But Wiggins’ hot streak might have staying power. The confidence and
fluidity of his shot — his willingness to rise and fire in recent games
— hints that this form might last for a long, long time. Folks have been
fooled before, but this is no longer a small sample size. This form
might just be the new normal for Wiggins.

So while the Warriors will only have two All-Stars in Cleveland this
season — Curry and Draymond Green — Wiggins, if he indeed keeps this up,
might just make a run at No. 3. He at least will deserve a conversation
at the ballot box.

Oh, and in that period of time, another Warriors All-Star and arguably
the greatest catch-and-shoot professional of all time should re-enter
the fold.

Klay Thompson on one wing, Wiggins on the other? I once didn’t think it
possible, but that has the makings of a deadly combination for the
Warriors heading into the meat of the season.