LAIE, Hawaii — Andrew Wiggins missed his third straight day of training camp with an illness and won’t play in Saturday’s preseason opener against the Clippers in Honolulu.
“Still sick, unfortunately,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said of Wiggins. “I’m not worried about Wiggs because he’s been here the past couple of weeks and he showed up in great shape. I just feel bad for him because he’s really focused on having a great year and he wants to be playing. Unfortunately, the training staff won’t let him go because he’s still under the weather.”
The Warriors have a finite amount of time to make a lot of changes. They’ve installed new sets and introduced new terminology since arriving in Hawaii at the start of this week. They want to play faster, shoot more 3-pointers and make defense their calling card.
Wiggins hasn’t participated in it, but he has watched from the sidelines. Still, it must be harder to pick things up visually than to actually do it. There’s a reason walkthroughs exist.
“That’s why he’s been here,” Kerr said. “He’s wearing his mask, he’s on the sidelines every day, watching what we’re doing. We’re basically doing things that he’s very familiar with, but we’re putting terminology in, we’re trying to be more purposeful, trying to build in some counters into things that we’ve already done. So it’s important for him to be here to watch all this stuff, which he’s doing.”
Wiggins is a veteran, and every training camp has its nuances. But Golden State’s training camp to-do list is long.
“It’s tough,” said Kyle Anderson, a 10-year veteran who arrived this summer via the Klay Thompson trade. “My head is spinning. It’s tough. We’re adjusting that’s what we’re here for in camp. I feel like younger me would be, like, all frantic and panicking, but I’ve got time to get it down.”
After practice wrapped up on Thursday, Wiggins — wearing a mask like the previous two days — got shots up on a side hoop. He has been around the team in the weeks prior to training camp, Kerr said, and his jumper looked smooth; at one point, he swished six consecutive wing 3-pointers.
The Warriors have big plans for Wiggins this season. Both Kerr and general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. talked him up at media day, saying he’s primed to return to the 2022 All-Star version of him after he struggled last year.
In 2023-24, Wiggins averaged a career-low 13.2 points per game and had his worst 3-point shooting season in years. The past two years have been difficult for Wiggins off the court as well. He has occasionally missed games for personal reasons, though he’s historically available to play.
Now, Golden State expects Wiggins to slide into a massively important role. They hope he can be the team’s second-leading scorer while also defending the best player on the opposing team.
“Wiggs is a 20-point-a-night scorer in his career, pretty much,” Draymond Green said on Wednesday. “Asking him to be the second option, the second scorer, you’re not asking him to do anything differently than he’s been his entire career. He’s more than capable.”
Green isn’t far off. Wiggins has averaged 18.5 points per game in his 10-year career.
But Wiggins has only been a team’s second (or top) scorer five times. None of those teams made the playoffs. In fact, the teams Wiggins has led or been the second-leading scorer on finished 15th, 13th, 13th, 14th and eighth in the West.
The 2022 championship season was the best stretch for Wiggins to date. The former No. 1 overall pick blossomed in the postseason as a knockdown shooter and transition threat while also bottling up other teams’ best players.
In an effort to simplify their offense, the Warriors expect to feature Wiggins more in the half-court. That could entail set plays to get him downhill or post touches.
Kerr doesn’t fear that Wiggins will fall behind as Golden State implements new schemes, and they aren’t going to change their plans because he got sick for a few days. But as Kerr has made clear, only two starting lineup spots — Steph Curry and Draymond Green — are guaranteed. Wiggins might have to get up to speed to claim his.
Notable
–Buddy Hield, a career 40% 3-point shooter with a notably flat jump shot, said he’s trying to emulate Curry’s arc.
Whatever happened to, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?’
“It’s not broke,” Hield said. “I just realized this summer, when I shoot it higher, it goes in much prettier. Better effect on the net.”
–Moses Moody was the last Warrior getting shots up at practice on Thursday. The emphasis for him is improving his jumper release and being ready to catch and shoot. Kerr said Moody’s “best pitch” has to be his 3-point shot.
