According to an ESPN report, a Golden State Warriors team source said that Andrew Wiggins‘ lack of conditioning has annoyed people within the organization. Whenever a team source says something specific about a player to a member of the media, it’s done for a reason. It’s the team’s way of calling the player out publicly with the hope that the message gets through. The message for Wiggins is start playing better.
Warriors Calling Out Andrew Wiggins
Wiggins has been really bad through the first 17 games of the season. He is averaging just under 12 points and four rebounds per game on abysmal 41/25/56 shooting splits. He is in the ninth percentile in EPM at -4.6. His BPM is the second worst of all rotation players in the league at -7.0. The only player worse is the Washington Wizards’ Jordan Poole.
Wiggins is in year one of a four-year, $109 million contract extension. The Warriors could always trade him, but his value is extremely low right now and the book is out on him. He’s extremely talented and was an integral part of a title-winning team in 2022 and was an All-Star, though that selection is looking more dubious as time passes. But he is not committed to doing the work and becoming a consistent version of the best player he can be.
2022 was an outlier season, and the body of work before and after is more in line with the player he is.
This Is Who Wiggins Has Always Been
In the 2018-19 season Jimmy Butler, then a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves and a Wiggins teammate, had an infamous practice session where he took the team’s reserves and demolished Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns and the other starters. Butler wanted a trade because he realized as talented as Wiggins is he and Towns didn’t have that “dog in them,” as the kids say.
Call it what you want. But the disposition to dominate is what makes the greats who they are. It’s more than just talent and ability.
Last season Wiggins missed two months, which the team is still calling an “undisclosed personal matter,” and he apparently didn’t take the summer seriously. Strange behavior for a seven-year pro and a champion.
The Warriors are struggling as a team and need Wiggins, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green to return to form and help Stephen Curry get this team back on track.
Calling Wiggins out through the media is likely a last-ditch effort to get through to him. Teams employ that strategy when nothing else seems to work. Either the player responds and turns things around or his days with that team are numbered.
The reality is it’s likely the end of the line for this Warriors team. Nobody doubts their championship mettle and excellence. But right now Curry is the only player playing like he’s still hungry for more.
