The Andrew Wiggins circle of hope and doom

If the Warriors trade Andrew Wiggins, what's that say about the team that acquires him?

Good morning. It’s Friday! Let’s basketball.

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Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset (after Jean-François Millet); Vincent van Gogh; 1890

It’s become clear in recent days that there is some level of a mandate for the Golden State Warriors to make a save-our-season trade (or two) before the deadline. After the Warriors’ blowout loss to the Pelicans on Wednesday, Stephen Curry indicated to the media that the team needs a shake-up. The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami has a good look at that quote and the other leaves falling around the team. ($) There are also reports that everyone on the team but Curry is available.

Kawakami’s take is that Andrew Wiggins is unlikely to be on the team after the deadline. Regardless of who comes back in that deal, moving off Wiggins’ enormous salary could help Mike Dunleavy’s front office fit better pieces around Curry for the next couple of years. (Or it could soften the blow of needing to pay Klay Thompson this summer.) Wiggins has been basically lost this season — he’s reached the point where DNP-CDs would not be out of the realm of possibility — and of course had his long absence for personal reasons in the back half of last season, followed by a shaky playoff appearance.

Here’s my question: if Wiggins is a DNP-CD candidate with about $85 million in salary guaranteed over the next three years, who the hell is in position to take him? And what else do the Warriors need to give up? Is the flexibility gained from dropping Wiggins at the low point of his value worth what it costs to give him up?

And on the other side: can anyone out there convince themselves that a return to form from his All-Star and championship season in 2021-22 is more likely than what we’re seeing now? Is there any confidence you’re not trading for Canadian Ben Simmons? Don’t you have to get something else back — or lose a nasty contract of your own — to justify taking a swing like this?

I often think back to the fact that the Timberwolves had to attach a first-round pick to Wiggins in 2020 to get D’Angelo Russell. The Warriors revitalized him to the point that a) he was an All-Star and b) Golden State gave him a relatively non-controversial huge contract extension in 2022, after the parade. Otherwise, his previous contract considered so excessive that the Warriors got a pick alongside him in the D’Lo trade would have expired last summer. Now, he’s on the books for an obscene amount and the Warriors might have to attach assets — maybe even Jonathan Kuminga, the player who came out of the pick that Minnesota attached in the original trade! — to move him for flexibility. A circle of hope and doom.

Lots of teams could really use a player like Good Andrew Wiggins. Lots of teams could be broken if they end up with Bad Andrew Wiggins on this contract. We’ve seen a positive spin-up happen once before, but the Wiggins that went into that transformation (Minnesota to Golden State) was at least an NBA rotation player. It doesn’t look like the current version of Wiggins meets that criteria. Seeing how other teams navigate this — whether desperation or irrational confidence or pragmatic problem exchanges leads to a move — is going to be fascinating. Wiggins isn’t exactly a Rorschach test, he’s more like a cloud you’re trying to imagine as an angel that just might be a devil.