Alan Truex: Mitchell Wiggins’ son has more talent but less heart
Updated Thursday, February 13, 2020
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Except that sometimes it does. Consider Andrew Wiggins, son of Mitchell Wiggins.
I knew Mitch when I covered the Rockets for the Houston Chronicle. In a league in which about ten percent of the players give a damn about defense, he treated both ends of the court equally and passionately.
He was a decent midrange shooter, though no more than that. He made his living on positioning and tenacity. As Rockets legend (playing and coaching) Rudy Tomjanovich put it: “Wiggins was a tough guy; he loved to play defense; he loved to attack the offensive boards.”
Mitch Wiggins was a baller before the term was in vogue. He played hoops as long as he could wherever he could. Quad City, Fort Wayne, Athens, Limoges, Biloxi, it made little difference to him. He was the ultimate journeyman: 19 pro teams, a sojourn that concluded, when he was 44, in Spearfish, South Dakota.
Years after he was finished with the NBA — and it was finished with him — he fathered a uniquely athletic son who benefits more from mother’s DNA than dad’s.
At Florida State, Mitch had become acquainted with another student-athlete, Olympic sprinter Marita Payne. They would marry, and in 1995, when dad was playing in the hinterlands of West Virginia, Andrew Wiggins was born. And would fall far from the tree. For better and worse.
Andrew dunked a basketball at 13, shattered backboard glass at 14. He was Naismith and Gatorade Prep Player of the Year. He was No. 1 pick overall in the 2014 NBA Draft, when he was 19. Then he was Rookie of the Year. He can soar and he can fly. He averages 20 points per game — twice as many as his father did for his NBA career.
Amazingly, Andrew has accomplished all this without trying very hard. Sports lllustrated slammed his effort while he was at the U of Kansas. NBA aficionados have charted his lack of development. Crescendo of complaints after the Minnesota Timberwolves gave him a max-contract extension in 2017.
The problem is the T-Wolves rarely win. Blame landed on their highest-paid players, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Jimmy Butler, one of the NBA Ten Percent who play defense, was appalled by the nonchalance of Wiggins and Towns. Butler berated them at practice, called them “punks” and demanded to be traded away from such lazy dysfunction.
So Butler is now in Miami, having passed through more dysfunction, in Philadelphia. He’s led the Heat to 17 games over .500 while the starving Wolves are 20 under and the Sixers are six feet under.
During his 5 1/2 seasons with the Minnies, Andrew Wiggins was characterized as a selfish gunner. He was not especially accurate: 44% from the field, 33% on 3s, 72% on free throws. He became a free pass on defense and no longer rattled much glass. It’s like he proved he’s good, he got paid, and that’s good enough.
The Golden State Warriors are hoping for considerably more after acquiring him last week in what’s potentially one of the most transformational basketball swaps ever – four teams, 12 players involved, and draft picks.
Steve Kerr chose his words carefully – as he always does – in describing his plan: “catching Andrew up to speed with what we like to do here and trying to make an impact on him regarding our process and how we like to do our business.”
Without hearing “defense” or “effort” you know what he’s talking about and around. Key words here are “speed” and “impact” and “business.”
David Fizdale, former NBA coach, said on ESPN’s The Jump: “You’re taking a No. 1 talent and you’re putting him with a bunch of champions still in the prime of their careers. They’ll teach him what he needs to know on defense. He will impact a game when one of those other guys isn’t rolling that night.”
Wiggins’ first three games for Golden State have been encouraging: 23-point average, 56% field-goal accuracy and a reasonable stab at defense. But the three games were Warriors losses. Which still leaves me wondering if the 6-foot-8 body of Andrew Wiggins contains a heart like his 6-4 father’s.
But hey, it could be so much worse. The senior Wiggins can be proud that Andrew has banked tens of millions of dollars and has avoided the pitfall of substance abuse that trapped Mitch Wiggins and too many of his teammates.
In 1987 the Rockets played Boston in the NBA Finals after losing point guard and brilliant on-court tactician John Lucas to drug addiction. That should have been a warning, but they ignored it. As imposing as they were with Twin Towers Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, they could not sustain additional backcourt losses. In 1988 their two shooting guards, Wiggins and Lewis Lloyd, tested positive to cocaine and were suspended for 2 ½ seasons.
Other members of that team – Dirk Minniefield, Robert Reid, Buck Johnson – were similarly lured by the popular but extremely illegal recreational drug. White powder hung over the Rockets like a black cloud. They could not just say no when leaving a night club and a stranger approached whispering, “Try this; it’s really good.” How addictive is it? Scientists say laboratory rats will starve, ignoring their food dish as long as cocaine is an option.
Olajuwon on occasion acted suspiciously. Coach Bill Fitch spoke publicly of “bad street talk,” warned him to “keep his nose clean.” Which as far as we know, Olajuwon did, while leading his team to back-to-back championships in 1994 and ‘95. And fortunately, the NBA culture changed after the druggy Eighties and Nineties derailed so many careers. Better that the most troubling issues in today’s NBA are untimely tweets, excessive load management and Andrew Wiggins’ plus-minus.
