Doctor MJ wrote:parsnips33 wrote:Oh yeah, how could I forget Andrew Wiggins
Well, thing is, for most of his NBA career it was objectively correct to say he wasn't all that valuable.
Wiggins' career progression with the Warriors is fascinating. He turned himself into a credible volume shooter, focused on defense, beefed up his BBIQ some after spending some time getting used to the quick cuts/off-ball movement of the Warriors' system, and otherwise didn't make many improvements to his skillset. Instead, he just stopped taking dumb shots. That version of Wiggins' pre-playoffs was a solid player. But I was still ok with moving off of him in the offseason if the Warriors didn't get to the Finals last year.
Instead, Wiggins became the second coming of Gerald Wallace when he realized that Poole taking up a bigger role in the offense would push him down the pecking order. Wiggins said during a podcast appearance on Andre Iguodala's show that his desire to grab rebounds had everything to do with wanting to get more buckets. And then by dedicating himself to rebounding and dirty work on defense in the playoffs, Wiggins simultaneously proved and defied his detractors.
My favorite stat about Wiggins' playoff run is not the rebounding numbers, but rather his shooting splits.
In the regular season, Wiggins had 46.6/39.3/63.4 shooting splits. Prior to Draymond Green getting injured, Wiggins was shooting over 40% from three. But in the two months that Draymond missed, Wiggins went through a huge slump and had a gross February. From the start of February to Draymond's return, Wiggins averaged 13.9 points on 41/35/39 shooting splits. Jonathan Kuminga, on the other hand, averaged 15.1 points on 56/36/77 splits over that same period.
So that's some context for his regular season. He still shot well despite a prolonged slump. But come playoffs, Wiggins averaged just 16.5 points a game on 46.9/33.3/64.6 shooting splits. That's pretty much on par with his regular season career averages of 44.9/35.5/72.2.
This is all to say, Wiggins was exactly the same player he's always been on offense come playoff time, albeit with a more selective shot chart. Incredibly, Andrew Wiggins shot worse from three in the 2022 Finals than Harrison Barnes did in the 2016 Finals. That Wiggins had such a huge impact on that series is a credit to him as a player and to his personal growth, which allowed him to thrive doing things he'd never shown a propensity for.
That's a good point actually. I can't claim to have ever been lower-than-typical on Curry...or his brother for that matter. I think it's worth trying to understand why this was different, and my answer would be:
