Sunday Randomness: How the Warriors can get the most out of Andrew Wiggins

The name Andrew Wiggins has become a bad word in NBA fandom. When he signed a five-year, $147.7 million contract in 2017, he entered a new realm of scrutiny. He has three years and $94.7 million left on his contract, including the $29.5 million he is set to earn (a prorated version of) this season. For the sake of context, Wiggins’ salary-cap figure this season is more than Draymond Green will make in any season of his new contract, which kicks in this season at $22.2 million and tops out at $27.5 million in the final year of the deal.

Wiggins’ big, growing cap number has diminished his reputation since he never led Minnesota to a winning record. When the Timberwolves went 47-35 in 2017-18, Jimmy Butler was credited with leading them, and that impression only grew since Minnesota won less than half of its games in the two years since Butler left.

So why do the Warriors feel so good about Wiggins? It’s not just Golden State exceptionalism. The truth is, Wiggins actually does fit a lot of the Warriors’ needs on offense. When you consider what they’ve lost in the last two seasons — with the departure of Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala, the retirement of Shaun Livingston and now the continued absence of Klay Thompson — some of the comforts they enjoyed with those players can, on paper, be compensated for by Wiggins.

No, Wiggins isn’t replacing all of what those players brought. But a couple of things Durant did for the Warriors, and a couple of things Iguodala and Livingston did, and even a thing or two Thompson has done, Wiggins has the ability to do.

Wiggins is good at basketball. The Warriors need to make him good at winning. They plan to do that by putting him in a system that highlights his strengths and on a roster that compensates for his weaknesses. Without Wiggins having to carry the team, as he did with Minnesota, the Warriors are banking on their structure turning him into a premium secondary player.

So how can he fit? How will they use him?

Defense and transition

At 6-foot-7 and looking like a solid 205 pounds these days, Wiggins fits their mold of an ideal wing. And the Warriors are eyeing a return to their swarming defense so they can jumpstart their transition game. Wiggins figures to be one of the best they’ve had in that arena.

“I feel like one of my strengths is that (I’m) long, athletic, fast and I can get out in transition,” Wiggins said last week. “I feel like transition, running the floor, is where I’m at my best.”

Oddly enough, Wiggins’ transition game was a relatively untapped resource in Minnesota. The first three seasons of his career, he was highly productive in transition. Per Synergy Sports, he shot at least 60 percent from the field in transition and scored at least 59 percent of the time. In 2016-17, he totaled 214 possessions in transition, a career high. Last season with Minnesota and the Warriors combined, he totaled 127 transition possessions — the first time in his career transition represented less than 10 percent of his total possessions.

The frequency of transition in Wiggins’ career pales to those whose shoes he is filling on the Warriors. Durant, in his three seasons under Steve Kerr, increased his transition possessions annually, from 297 to 332 to 386. On average, a quarter of Iguodala’s possessions in his five seasons under Kerr were in transition. Harrison Barnes used about 15 percent of his possessions on transition in his two seasons under Mark Jackson. It jumped to 23.4 percent in his first season under Kerr and then was at 19.1 percent in his second one.

If the Warriors can get Wiggins transition opportunities anywhere near the level they got them for Durant, especially if he’s as effective as he used to be in transition, it figures to dramatically improve his efficiency.

Initiating offense

What the Warriors don’t have for their half-court offense is a second initiator. Kerr’s offense always has one. Durant. Iguodala. Draymond Green. Since he likes to take advantage of Stephen Curry’s gravity off the ball, Kerr needs someone else to run the sets.

In some ways, Green has been neutralized as an initiator since opponents started putting small forwards on him to take away his quickness advantage and sagged off of him to invite his 3-point shooting. This clogs the paint and closes some of the openings the Warriors’ movement with Curry off the ball are designed to create. The Warriors can still use Green in certain matchups, and Green is still adept at getting the ball off the defensive glass and pushing it. But the best use of him in the half court has been as the roll man or setting screens, since he’s such a good screener. That means someone else needs to be able to initiate offense.

Being an initiator on offense works best when creating your own shot is an option. Even Iguoala would every now and then take his man off the dribble just to make sure the ball handler was truly defended. That also means he has to be a sure ball handler. Kerr cannot stomach initiators who can’t dribble. He’ll go with a center initiating before he puts his offense in the hands of someone who can’t dribble against pressure.

For years, Curry off the ball has been a staple of the Warriors offense, dating back to when Jarrett Jack was the third guard running the show. The Warriors have usually had two deadly shooters moving off the ball and somebody had to make the right reads and feed one of them (or the big man who slipped the screen). The Warriors had big plans for Wiggins in this role with Curry and Thompson on either side, ultimate floor spreaders giving Wiggins room to work.

With no Thompson, all of the attention will go to Curry and the defense will have more freedom to help. There are only three options to put opposite Curry: Wiggins, Kelly Oubre Jr. or Damion Lee. But Kerr essentially declared Oubre a starter. Of Wiggins and Oubre, the former has the most skill and experience at creating offense. Wiggins is the second-best scorer on the team and has the most skill and experience when it comes to creating offense. That means Wiggins can keep the defense honest, which is even more important without Thompson absorbing so much of the defense’s attention.

That puts Oubre in the Thompson role off the ball, moving off screens, slashing or spotting up. Is that enough shooting? That’s going to be up to Oubre. Last season with Phoenix, he took 300 3s and 90 percent of them were “open” or “wide open” per the NBA’s tracking. Combining both, meaning the nearest defender was at least four feet away, Oubre was 94-for-271, or 34.7 percent. That’s an improvement from 32.5 percent in 2018-19 on the same open looks.

In case you were wondering, in the 2018-19 regular season Thompson shot 41.6 percent on 449 combined “open” and “wide open” 3-pointers.

The decrease in shooting, and thus lack of spacing, makes this second initiator’s ability even more important. Wiggins has a chance to be good in the role as long as Kerr puts him in advantageous situations — which includes the right mix of players on the floor with him and an emphasis on him attacking the rim instead of settling for long twos.

Wiggins actually has some skills that make him ideal for this role. He’s got a nice handle and some hops, so he can get his shot off. His first step is pretty explosive. He’s really good at getting low on his first step and getting his body into the defender. He should be even better at it with his added strength.

“I put on a couple pounds of muscle,” Wiggins said. “Just a few. Just a few.”

Wiggins has never been that efficient a scorer in isolation. But it is probably because he leans too heavily on his jumper. When he attacks the basket, he’s much more effective. When he settles for jumpers, his efficiency plummets. Wiggins isn’t Kyrie Irving by any means, so he’s not getting to the rim at will. But if he sees a path, or if there is just one man to beat, he’s pretty good at getting there.

So his decision-making and ability to read the options will be key. When he’s in a pick-and-roll setting, is he trying to get to the basket or setting up the fadeaway 22-footer? When he’s got a one-on-one situation, does he aggressively pursue the rim or settle? It’s pretty obvious what he should do based on the results.

Here is the data from the last three seasons, per Synergy Sports, looking at how Wiggins fared when he drove the lane and when he pulled up for jumpers.

If the Warriors can get him to attack the rim more than he settles for the jumper, it could work wonders for the Warriors’ half-court offense. A lot of that depends on what kind of driving lanes he has — again, the lack of shooting is an issue here — and how disciplined he can be.

Another element of his game that makes him suitable as an initiator: his passing.

I know. Sounds crazy, right?

Wiggins averaged more than three assists for the first time last season (3.7). Despite his reputation as a volume shooter, he actually does have nice court vision. With his size and athleticism, he is good at driving and improvising, finding open teammates while in the air. The Warriors’ way includes passing the ball, and ideally Wiggins will get a good grasp of where players will be in the sets they run. If the Warriors can play up that part of his game, they might have themselves a secondary facilitator.

He just has to earn the trust of Kerr and his teammates with his decision-making.

Spotting up

In his 12 games with the Warriors last season, Wiggins made 20 of his 59 3-point attempts. No, 33.9 percent is nothing to write home about. But there was one encouraging sign for the Warriors: Wiggins was lights out on corner 3-pointers.

Synergy Sports had him at 6-for-10 on corner 3s with the Warriors. Yes, a small sample size in his 12 games. However, he doesn’t take a ton of corner 3s normally and the small sample represents an uptick worth watching.

In 2017-18, Wiggins made 40.9 percent from the corner, taking 66 attempts in 82 games. He followed that with 47.6 percent in 2018-19, taking 63 in 73 games. Last season, his corner shooting percentage went down sharply with Minnesota: 11-for-39 (28.2 percent). But he put on a different jersey and suddenly he was money.

That last comment by Jeff Van Gundy on the broadcast is exactly what the Warriors are hoping for. Wiggins played just one game with Curry before the pandemic ended the season and he still got open looks from the corner after his arrival and made them at a high clip. It stands to reason he will get a healthy dose of those with Curry on the court.

Curry’s penetration, in transition or in the half-court set, sucks defenders to the paint. The Warriors offensive scheme tends to put players spaced out on either side who slide with Curry and give him a passing angle. When Curry has the ball and Wiggins is on the court, that’s going to be Wiggins’ opening many times.

Wiggins will also get opportunities when Green runs the pick-and-roll with Curry. When the opponents double Curry, it leaves Green with a three-on-two advantage. Green likes to draw the center defender a step forward to open up the lob. But if the center covers the lob and the other defender takes Green, that leaves the corner man open. Wiggins can be either one, the lob catcher or the corner shooter. Throughout the course of the season, he’ll be both.

The Warriors are going to need Wiggins to shoot it better than he has over his career. He has to punish the defense for leaving him open. The Warriors shot 39.4 percent on corner 3s as a team last season. That was the lowest since Kerr took over as coach. If Wiggins can take advantage of the corners, it will go a long way towards helping the offense.

Posting up

Remember when Livingston would come in with the second unit and go to work on the low block? Many times, it was the only way the second unit could score effectively. Wiggins can actually bring that back to the offense. He is a much better post player than his numbers suggest.

In 2017-18, when the Timberwolves made the playoffs, Wiggins posted up 9.9 percent of the time and shot 51.6 percent. He posted up a bit less in 2018-19, down to eight percent of his possessions. But his production petered out, shooting just 39.6 percent. Last season, he essentially abandoned the post. He backed down his man in four percent of his possessions in Minnesota, three percent of the time with the Warriors.

It might be worth revisiting, especially since Wiggins has bulked up a bit. Wiggins can punish smaller guards who get stuck on him and go around bigger, slower forwards. Kerr liked to post up Thompson when he got matched on a point guard. With Curry on the court, that could be Wiggins.

Kerr absolutely wants Wiggins to cook in the second unit. That might be how he builds Wiggins’ confidence in the system and gets Wiggins into rhythm. Some time on the block might be good for him.

What’s unique about Wiggins is how springy and pliable he is around the rim. He’s got nice touch on his flip shots and can contort his body to create different angles. And he will posterize a defender. The issue with Wiggins, though, is the shot selection. He’ll use the post to set up his fadeaway jumper, which looks pretty when it goes in, but it bails out the defense.

Posting doesn’t work so much when the opponent can clog the paint, which again underscores the Warriors’ lack of shooting. But if Wiggins has a size mismatch with Curry on the floor, Kerr can have Curry feed Wiggins, since the defender can’t leave Curry. Wiggins will have to learn quickly about Curry’s knack for relocating when the defender falls asleep. Chase Center will lose its collective mind if Wiggins misses an open Curry and bricks a turnaround jumper.

In the second unit, Lee or Mychal Mulder can be floor spacers and viable kick-out options.

Another “post” option is putting Wiggins in the high-post elbow area. The Warriors used Durant there a lot and he’d get to his spot and pull up with ease over anybody. The Warriors started using Thompson there before he got hurt because he’s nearly as deadly in the midrange.

It’s not clear if Kerr wants Wiggins at the elbow launching all the midrange jumpers he can take. When Wiggins is on, he can hit that shot. But the bigger task would be for him to get the ball in that spot, use his size to survey the landscape and make the right read. He has to be able to see the back-door cut and get it there, see the player curling off the screen, find the man open in the opposite corner, or seize on a driving lane when it opens. And, yes, if he’s feeling it, take the midrange.

We’ve arrived at the time where we have to choose a high school for my princess. Guess what her first choice is? Oakland Tech.

Daddy’s girl.

Just know, if she ends up playing volleyball for Tech, I will be insufferable.

Fred Warner has become quite the duel-threat linebacker. We know him as the speedy-but-tough tackler flying around the field. He is 16th in the NFL with 85 combined tackles (solo plus assisted). Of the top 50 in combined tackles, only seven linebackers have a lower missed-tackle percentage than Warner’s 5.6 percent.

But Warner has also become quite the force in pass coverage, a nod to his speed, instincts and smarts. Quarterbacks are posting a rating of 64.5 when targeting Warner, which is fourth among linebackers with at least seven games played. His 7.2 yards per completion is ninth. Pro Football Focus grades Warner top five in coverage among linebackers. His total of two interceptions is second among all linebackers so far this season.

He can cover tight ends. He can string out runs. He can shadow running backs out of the backfield. He is one of the 49ers’ primary blitzers. And he’s a sure tackler. And he’s doing a lot of this in 2020 without the aid of a dominant defensive line.

Kyrie Irving can talk to the media or not. Count me as one who doesn’t care.

If a player doesn’t want to talk to the media, that is between his team, his teammates and the NBA. It is part of the collective bargaining agreement that players talk to the media. But players duck this responsibility often. Klay Thompson skips it every chance he gets. Largely, no one says anything if the player is available at least occasionally. But players and teams break the agreed upon rules all the time. As reporters, we eat it. If it gets to be too much of a problem, we might bring it up to the team’s media relations officials. If it gets too bad, it can get taken to the Professional Basketball Writers Association (PBWA).

If Kyrie doesn’t want to talk, and accepts whatever punishment comes from the league, that’s his prerogative. If his Nets teammates are fine answering questions for him and about him, then he has all the license he needs. Maybe it’s my age and how many years I’ve done this talking, but my personal take is that if someone makes it clear they don’t want to talk to me, I will honor that. Usually, people who don’t want to talk won’t give good answers. And I’m a grown man, so I’m not begging someone to talk to me against their expressed will.

But judging by the dialogue about Irving’s decision to issue a statement and not speak to the media at the start of training camp last week, it is clear there is a great misunderstanding about the relationship between media and NBA franchises and players. It sounds by the dialogue as if players are only giving and the media is only taking. First, it must be said the relationship is not exclusively defined by the stars. Some of them get so big, so popular, it seems they don’t need media. (Although, when Curry wanted to launch his new brand, he didn’t rely solely on his massive platform but tapped into media heavily.) While Kyrie may not need to or want to talk to the media, many others do. They love talking ball. They want to build their platforms. They want their charity work and businesses promoted. They want to set the record straight. Not everybody has millions of followers. Obviously, most of those players don’t deal with the scrutiny Kyrie’s talent commands. But the superstar/media relationship is but one component of the dynamic.

Also, on that road to superstardom, many of these players have taken full advantage of the presence and impact of the media. This is not and has never been a one-way street.

Many people in the NBA understand this relationship. The Miami Heat were recently named the winners of the 2019-20 Brian McIntyre Media Relations Award given by the PBWA. It’s named after Brian McIntyre because of his long history of understanding the importance of the relationship as the NBA’s former top PR official. Raymond Ridder, the Warriors senior VP of communications, is regarded as one of the best to ever do it because he understands the relationship. His staff has won the McIntyre Award six times since it was established in 2007.

Nobody worked as hard as Ridder to get Warriors stories in print. Before they were juggernauts, they were laughingstocks. Ridder made it his business to get local and national people to write about the Warriors. When the Warriors blew up, Ridder didn’t forget those days.

Before the Warriors were juggernauts, I used to argue with editors to get my stories on the front page and off of page 10. And when it didn’t work, which it often didn’t, I dug and dug for more stories unique enough and good enough to warrant better play. And reporters all over the nation were doing that — fighting to get their NBA work in prime position, trying to convince the powers that be how relevant and interesting this league was, why we should get to travel to cover All-Star Games and NBA Finals in the same way legions were sent to cover Super Bowls.

The media isn’t just part of the NBA, it helped build the NBA. Is the media wild and out of control at times? Absolutely. Most media members will cop to that. But the media isn’t the only entity in this NBA universe that can be wild and out of control. That’s just how it goes when you become a sports league of this size and magnitude.

The media has been absolutely vital to the popularization of the NBA. The media is directly responsible for growing the NBA into a global phenomenon from a league on tape delay in the 1980s. The media is directly responsible for the cultivation of superstars, for telling their stories and building their brands and exposing their talents and personalities to the masses.

The media introduced you to LeBron James. And LeBron benefited greatly from media hype as a high school student. That Sports Illustrated cover alone boosted his popularity, and his popularity helped him land a $90 million Nike endorsement before he ever played a game in the NBA.

Think of any truth discovered, anything real and important — that perhaps was negative in the minds of the NBA — and it was highly likely the media brought it to light. And fans like the reality. They don’t want the propaganda. They want the whole story and its context, the whys and the hows and what happened. Sometimes that burns the league and its players. But it’s what makes it real drama. Also, many of the cultural elements in the sport were born of the media’s reach and impact. “Trust the Process” was popularized by an interview Tony Wroten did with Pablo Torre of ESPN. “Board man gets paid” was uncovered by the great storytelling of The Athletic’s Jayson Jenks. The media isn’t just leeching off the NBA, but actively contributing to its culture and ecosystem.

The relationship between the media and the NBA is contentious at times. It is also ridiculous at times. It is also amazing at times. If Kyrie Irving wants to opt out, that’s fine by me. But his doing so doesn’t negate the value of the media to the league and its players.

(Photo: Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)