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If you think Andrew Wiggins isn’t fully aware of his criticisms, you are wrong.
If you think he lacks competitive fire, he wants to burn you with it.
And if you think he doesn’t care about his reputation for being less than the sum of his gifts, then haven’t watched or listened to him.
After scoring a team-high 17 points and stopping four career-high shots as the Warriors held the Toronto Raptors to a 106-105 win on Sunday, Wiggins in a post-game interview with NBC Sports Bay Area has willingly acknowledged what it would like to do. do in the image that clung to him for most of his six-year career.
“I’m just trying to make a statement, you know?” he said. “I’m just trying to change that narrative, come here, work hard and do what I have to do to win. And go defensively.
Wiggins’ “story” is, and has been for several years, one of ineffectiveness in attack and indifference in defense. He brought it with him last February, when it was acquired by the Warriors in a trade that sent D’Angelo Russell to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The “claim” that Wiggins makes is that he is not an ineffective, calorie-free marker. He shoots well, makes smart decisions, and delivers crucial shots – all while playing so effectively on defense that coaches and teammates line up to give him compliments.
“He’s been amazing,” Steph Curry said on Sunday. “He took on the challenges in the 1 on 1 defense, being able to be physical, to use his length, to make the guys work.”
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After defending Clippers star forward Kawhi Leonard in 2 of 12 shots in two games, Wiggins was assigned to Toronto star forward Pascal Siakam on Sunday, who scored 25 points, most of which on switches or when Wiggins was off the ground.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr not only praised Wiggins’ defense, but cited it as essential to the team’s aspirations this season.
“We now have someone we can put on the best player on the opposing team, whether it’s Pascal Siakam, LeBron, Kawhi or Paul George,” Kerr said. “The ability to put Andrew on these types of players to use his size and athleticism, is really the key to building our current roster.”
Andrew Wiggins as a defensive centerpiece? This is a revelation. He enters this realm.
Wiggins ’15 blocked shots equal 7-foot-1 cross James Wiseman for the team leader, and his defensive rating of 110.8 is superior to defensive players like the Raptors’ Fred VanVleet and the Thunder’s Luguentz Dort. Oklahoma City – the same Luguentz Dort that gave James Harden playoff games.
While coaches and teammates, including hard-to-impress Draymond Green, do Wiggins credit, the seventh-year Canadian cites the environment as having a positive impact on his entire game, including his defense.
“I feel like I’ve always played a good defense; I just feel like the culture is different here, ”he said. “Everything is different here, especially with the guys I have behind me. It’s not just me on defense. We have Draymond, we have Steph, we have Kelly [Oubre Jr.] do a hell of a job. The guys behind me, I know they are supporting me and it’s great here.
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Yet even as Wiggins draws praise for his defense, his attack across 10 games also leaves holes in “the narrative.” He averages 17.5 points per game, shooting 43.3% from the field and 38.5% from beyond the arc. The latter would be the best of his career.
“He comes in, gets on the offensive and finds his way,” Damion Lee said. “Defensively – not to say that I didn’t know he could keep like that, I haven’t watched Minnesota much unless we played them – but he definitely takes up the challenge every night. For him, it’s huge. He’s a two-way street player.
“It will be fun to look forward to Andrew being a two-player and Klay [Thompson] returns next year with another excellent two-player.
In the Warriors’ organizational chart, Lee is neither a CEO nor a CEO. But Bob Myers and Joe Lacob must be loving what they see of a guy whose contract is close to $ 95 million over the next three years.
If Wiggins keeps going up, it will be worth it. His name could even disappear from commercial NBA gossip. And the new tale will be that the Warriors were shrewd to acquire it and the Visionaries to unleash its potential.
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