Canada’s Andrew Wiggins a huge part of Warriors’ NBA championship win

Andrew Wiggins didn’t have the chance to play on the NBA’s biggest stage for eight years.

Languishing for a while in Minnesota before joining the retooling Golden State Warriors roster, the Canadian gained a reputation as a talented and reserved player.

Wiggins has turned this reputation upside down in the NBA playoffs. It turns out that he enjoys the big moments just as much as the small ones.

With a win over Boston of 103 to 90, the Warriors wrapped up their fourth NBA championship in eight seasons.

On a team that boasts the likes of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — who have been to six NBA Finals together — it was Wiggins who stepped up with the best stretch of his career to push the Warriors to the title.

Wiggins was crucial in the game’s final victory. He scored 18 points, including six rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Curry said Curry, “He’s shining at the brightest of scenes in the playoffs.” said after Game 5. “It’s amazing to see things work out in his favor in terms of kinda dispelling all the narratives surrounding him and who he really is as a basketball player right before your eyes.”

Wiggins made a strong performance in Game 6 to get into the Finals MVP discussion. This helped Golden State turn a series deficit of 2-1 into an advantage of 3-2.

Wiggins had 17 rebounds and 16 points in Game 4 when the Warriors tied it 2-2. The Warriors won Game 5 with 26 points and 13 rebound wins. Wiggins then scored an emphatic dunk to beat Boston’s Derrick White in Game 5.

He was also a great defender of Jayson Tatum, Celtics star, throughout the series.

His stars were his teammates.

Thompson: “We don’t get more excited than Wiggs dunks onto somebody and’meanmugs’ them.” said after Game 5. “That really lifts up the entire team and the Bay Area.”

Wiggins, a highly-hyped prospect in the Toronto area, was predicted to have this kind of success in the NBA early in his career. It took him a while for his prodigious talents in the big leagues to take root.

Wiggins, who had only one varsity season at Kansas in his first year, was selected first overall by Cleveland for 2014. However, he would never play on the same court as LeBron James’s Cavaliers. He was traded to Minnesota in a package that included Kevin Love, a big man from Ohio, before his rookie season.

The Cavs would make it to the NBA Finals four times, winning one of them against Wiggins’ future Warriors teammates. Wiggins, however, was left in relative anonymity with a Timberwolves team that was mostly forgotten for six seasons.

Minnesota made the playoffs once in his time there when they finished 47-35 in 2017-18 — good for eighth in the Eastern Conference — before bowing out to Houston in five games in the first round.

Every other season was a losing one. This included a league-worst 16-1666 in 2014-15. Wiggins was the rookie of year award winner.

The losing brought a lackluster sense of urgency. With little to play for Wiggins garnered a reputation — deserved or not — as a talented player who made little impact on the court, an “empty calories” scorer who put up big numbers when the game wasn’t on the line.

D’Angelo Russell went the other way, and Wiggins was sent to Golden State. The Warriors fell to a 15-50 record after Thompson was injured in Game 6 against Toronto. Kevin Durant was also out.

Wiggins was slow to get used to his new team but he made a comeback this season and received an All-Star nomination for the first time in his professional career.

Now, he is a key member of a championship winning team.

Wiggins: “It is the moment.” saidEarlier in the playoffs. “It’s always great to show what you can achieve and what you have done. So I’m just glad to be able help my team win on the biggest stage.

Wiggins is the eighth Canadian player to win an NBA title. He joins Mike Smrek, Bill Wennington (Chicago), 1996, and Mike Smrek (Los Angeles Lakers 1987, ’88). ’97, 1998), Rick Fox (Lakers 2000, ’01, 02), Joel Anthony [Miami], 2012], Cory Joseph (“San Antonio”), Tristan Thompson (“Cleveland”), and Chris Boucher (“Golden State 2018 Toronto 2019”).

This report by The Canadian Press first appeared June 16, 2022.