Golden State Warriors: Andrew Wiggins and Warriors culture

Nine seasons after being drafted with the number one overall pick and two years since being shipped out of Minnesota as a “bust,” Andrew Wiggins has finally lived up to his All-Star billing, thanks in part to a Golden State Warriors Warriors Culture that doesn’t get enough credit.

Less than a year after his abrupt firing from his role as President of Basketball Operations and head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Tom Thibodeau found himself in San Francisco, visiting his friend and former colleague Ron Adams. Since their time together along the bench with the Chicago Bulls nearly a decade prior, Thibs and Adams’ careers had gone in starkly different directions.

Capitalizing on their success in installing a hard-nosed culture in the Windy City, as well as having developed a pair of All-NBA talents in Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler, Thibodeau became the lead decision-maker in Minneapolis; a franchise that had a plethora of young talent waiting to be nurtured, with little organizational culture to speak of.

While Thibs’ arrival in Minnesota seemed to herald the start of a new chapter in the woebegone history of the team, the reality of his tenure was far less inspiring. Featuring only a single playoff appearance in his three seasons with the squad, Thibodeau’s Wolves were a collection of poor defenders, inconsistent scorers, and a group of lead decision-makers that could never seem to agree on a direction for the franchise.

Making matters worse for the former coach of the year was the performance of Andrew Wiggins following the signing of a five-year, $146 million extension. Acquired in the blockbuster trade that sent Kevin Love to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Wiggins oscillated between utilizing his freak length and athleticism to swallow entire portions of the floor on defense to appearing completely disinterested in competing at a high level. He was, at that point, one of the rare players who seemed to have regressed the more experience he gained.

Ultimately, the Tom Thibodeau Timberwolves era would culminate in a Jimmy Butler hijacked practice that still doesn’t seem real even three years later.

Far from operating with a winning culture, Wiggins and the rest of the Wolves roster appeared to be far more ready to compete in an episode of “Survivor” than making a deep postseason run.

Adams, meanwhile, had settled in as a critical member of Steve Kerr’s staff in Golden State. As the defensive coordinator of a squad that had already won three championships by the time of Thibodeau’s visit, Adams had established himself as one of the best minds in the game – at one point winning four consecutive Assistant Coach of the Year awards.

Yet, while his schematic acumen was unparalleled, Adams’ ability to mix his unvarnished “truth-telling” and challenges to coaches and players alike without being tuned out by both allowed him to help establish the kind of culture in San Francisco that never took root in Minneapolis.

"“Even during a winning streak, Ron will tell me, ‘we stunk last night,'” Kerr once told Kurt Streeter of the New York Times. “He will say it to my face. He does not get fooled by our record. He’ll walk into practice and tell me we have to do a certain defensive drill; we can’t forget the fundamentals because we’ve been awful.'”"

While Thibodeau’s visit to the Bay was one in several stops that the coach took in a “listening tour” while he awaited his next opportunity to lead a team, it turned out that his presence was as beneficial to the Warriors as it was Thibs himself. As luck would have it, shortly before his arrival, Golden State completed a trade that acquired Wiggins from the Wolves.

"“I had a long conversation with [Thibodeau] about Andrew,” Kerr told the NY post at the time. “He gave me some good advice on ways to connect with Andrew, how much he enjoyed coaching him and why.”"

Yet, while the intel may have been sound, Thibs’ presence in the Bay was a clear reminder of the failed promise that had defined Wiggins’ career to that point. What was less certain was if the Warriors could help the still young player discover if he had anything more to offer.

How Andrew Wiggins became the second-best player on a title team

Flash forward two and a half years later, and we all know how the story played out. The Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics to capture their fourth title in eight years, with Wiggins an integral part of their title run.

Not only did Golden State “win” their trade with the Timberwolves – dealing D’Angelo Russell for Wiggins and a first-round pick that later became Jonathan Kuminga – but Wiggins’ play on both sides of the floor established him as the Warriors’ second most important player throughout the postseason.

For good measure, Wiggins’ heroics in Game 5 of the Finals, in which he amassed 26 points and 13 rebounds to save the Dubs amidst a poor shooting performance from Steph Curry, served as one of the most memorable performances of the entire 2021-22 NBA season.

However, even if the image of Wiggins speeding into the lane for an exclamation dunk near the end of that statement victory is the one that we carry with us when thinking about the Warriors’ playoff run, the reality is that Wiggins served as the motor for Golden State long before that.

Trailing late against the Denver Nuggets in Game 3 of their first-round matchup, Wiggins delivered both a dagger three-point shot that put the Warriors ahead for good as well as a tough defensive possession against Jokic down low.

By the next round, not only had Wiggins stepped into the vacuum left by Gary Payton II following an injury to take sole responsibility for guarding Ja Morant, but he delivered an emphatic full-court drive and dunk that ranks amongst the best of his career.

Ultimately though, it was his stellar defensive effort throughout the postseason that most moved the needle for the Warriors.

Against the Mavericks, Wiggins drew the unenviable task of attempting to contain Luka Doncic, one of the rare individuals in the league who could win a series almost entirely by himself. However, not only did Wiggins hold Doncic to a pedestrian 20 points in Game 1 on 3-of-18 shooting, but he consistently short-circuited the Mavericks’ attempts to get Luka the space he usually thrives off of.

Watch this clip, and you’ll notice Wiggins ever so slightly adjust his course to avoid the oncoming pick from Dinwiddie along the sideline, a spatial awareness that Wiggins simply didn’t possess earlier in his career. While Doncic has a brief moment of daylight with a lane towards the rim, Wiggins’ quick lateral movement allows him to reattach himself to Luka’s side, changing the angle of his attack and leading to an errant layup attempt.

Even in Game 2, in which Doncic rebounded to score an efficient 42 points, Wiggins showcased the wherewithal to stay with the All-NBA guard for much of the night. Rather than try and beat him off-the-dribble, Doncic switched gears and tried attacking the defender in the post–an area in which the 6-foot-7, 230-pound guard bullied opponents in on nearly 30% of his possession, according to Cleaning the Glass.

Still, Wiggins possesses far more upper-body strength than most would guess and a superb ability to stay grounded on pump-fakes, often leaving ball-handlers trapped between his 7-foot wingspan and the baseline. So stifling was Wiggins defending down-low that he ranked in the 92nd percentile of defenders during the postseason, per tracking data from Synergy.

Unable to move Wiggins near the rim and failing to draw an overreaction and a foul on his pump-fakes, Doncic was forced to settle for a tough fall-away jumper that harmlessly clanged off the far side of the rim.

"“Thibs was like, ‘You guys are gonna love [Wiggins],” Draymond Green told reporters during the Finals, referencing Thibodeau’s San Francisco visit early last year. “‘He competes, he defends.’ And he was telling us Jimmy loved him. We all know how Jimmy Butler is. If you’ve got any softness to you, then Jimmy don’t like you. That’s just how Jimmy is.”"

Still, while Wiggins undeniably deserves credit for displaying a level of toughness and skill few thought he possessed, the Warriors’ infrastructure deserves a measure of credit for crafting an environment that consistently propels players towards the best versions of themselves.

From Andre Iguodala to Andrew Bogut, to even Steph Curry, Golden State’s success has been defined as much by their player development and ability to place their personnel in the best positions to succeed as it has been their three-point shooting.

To be clear, it’s not to discount the tremendous amount of talent that they have accrued on their roster; however, in a league in which talent abounds, and the difference between success and failure is so narrow, the Warriors’ culture has often been the difference between contending for trophies and actually collecting them.

A case in point has been Wiggins’ revamped offensive repertoire.

Having entered the league as a high-usage player who required the rock in his hands to work, Wiggins was a slightly below-average offensive player, ranking in the 48th percentile in the league in offensive efficiency during his last full season with the Timberwolves, per Synergy.

With the Warriors, however, nearly 40% of Wiggins’ possessions come off spot-ups and cuts to the basket, as his efficiency rose to the 61st percentile. Still, as much as Golden State thrives off the chaos that their off-ball movement thrives off, even they find themselves needing a player who can work one-on-one in isolation.

After the Warriors’ initial action fails thanks to Jaylen Brown nimbly maneuvering around a screen and Robert Williams coming up off the pick, Golden State found themselves with few good options to reset the possession with ten seconds having already been drained off the shot-clock. Wiggins’ ability, then, to take Tatum off the dribble and generate space near the elbow is even more impressive when you consider the bucket was generated when the team had almost nothing else working.

The beauty of Golden State’s system is not that it forces square pegs into round holes but rather that it expands what we believed a player was capable of, essentially proving that the peg could shift into whatever shape or role was required.

For a former number-one pick known for putting numbers akin to “empty calories,” it proved the difference between wasting away in an NBA backwater, a footnote in another team’s success, and getting the chance to star in your own story.

Whether it’s Ron Adams’ unrelenting drive and “truth-telling,” Steve Kerr’s collaborative nature, Steph Curry’s underappreciated greatness, or a combination of all three and countless other reasons, Golden State has succeeded in large part because of a culture that fosters success.

Seven years after first hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy, neither that culture nor the winning ways it inspires appear to be going anywhere.