We should all aspire to be like Andrew Wiggins, starting small forward for the Golden State Warriors. This may be the first time such words have been written since 2014, when he was drafted #1 overall in what “was supposed to be the draft of Andrew Wiggins,” as Sports Illustrated once put it. The sentence construction should tell you all you need to know about Wiggins’ seven-year career since then.
If you google “is andrew wiggins a bust,” you’ll soon see the popular consensus includes these observations:
It’s not exactly fair to call him a bust.
But you can kinda see why people would.
This lukewarm appraisal of Wiggins can be attributed in part to his status as a former top draft pick. But it’s mostly due to his $147.7 million contract. This year he’s being paid almost $32.6 million to average 17.2 points and 4.5 rebounds on 32.8% 3PT shooting. His player efficiency rating (PER) is 16.16. By definition, the average PER is 15. Wiggins’ number ranks 102nd in a league where about 250 players get significant playing time.
Here’s where it should be mentioned the average NBA salary this year is $7.9 million, and, as noted before, Wiggins is making $32.6 million.
Wiggins does not think he’s overpaid. Most of the sports commentariat disagrees. As ESPN senior writer Zach Lowe noted on his podcast, Wiggins is “fine.” But “fine” is not worth $32.6 million. Wiggins seems to lack the belly-fire that fuels truly great players (and, by extension, makes them worthy of their paychecks). Former Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Jimmy Butler found Wiggins’ laissez faire approach to his job so infuriating that Butler staged the most incredible Trade Me, Motherfuckers protest in league history, shouting that Wiggins was “soft” as he humiliated his erstwhile mentee in practice. Butler also posited that Wiggins “ain’t shit,” both on defense and, presumably, in life.
Butler may be an overbearing sadist and a generally unlikable prick, but he’s not the only one to reach this conclusion. On another episode of Lowe’s podcast, senior writer Anthony Slater of The Athletic described Wiggins as “floating in and out of interest with the game.” As all nine of us Wolves fans can attest, Wiggins’ career has been defined by his refusal to give a shit for extended periods of time. But on the brief occasions when he does, his sheer talent gets people drunk with expectations. Once or twice a year he catches fire, prompting a fresh wave of “Is Andrew Wiggins Going to Burn Us Again?” articles. The answer is always a resounding yes. But, like Tobias Fünke suggesting an open marriage, there’s always a hope things might work this time. The Wolves chased that dragon for years. Now it’s the Warriors’ turn.
If you’re the owner of an NBA team or an insecure alpha type like Jimmy Butler, you’d have good reason to dislike Wiggins, because he makes a whole lot of money and he usually doesn’t work very hard. But if you’re a fan, you should appreciate him for the exact same reasons.
I’ll admit this is easier to do when he’s not playing for your team. But once you’re free of the irrational expectation that Wiggins hitting his corner 3s or trying to play defense will help complete you in some way, you too can take joy in his utter disinterest in striving for greatness. In a league that fetishizes giving 110%, Wiggins is cool with topping out at maybe 80% on a good night.
That’s what makes Wiggins so relatable to the average worker. On special occasions—like when he’s playing against an ex-team and wants to show them what they lost—he can flip the ass-kicking switch and perform incredible feats. But on your typical Monday or Tuesday? Odds are you’re going to see a mostly serviceable, mostly ignorable version of Wiggins.
And that’s fine. Because Wiggins’ job, like most of our jobs, doesn’t matter. There are exceptions if you’re a nurse, firefighter, teacher, etc. Jobs like these have a big, direct impact on our collective quality of life. Doing them well is vital for a healthy society. But if you’re a customer service rep or a public relations specialist or a freelance designer (i.e. if you have a bullshit job, as the late anthropologist David Graeber defined them) there’s no reason to pour your heart and soul into your job. As long as you’re doing it well enough to keep the paychecks coming and the boss off your back, you’re doing as much as you need to do. You’re doing fine, just like Andrew Wiggins.
Wiggins has amassed a gigantic fortune by using capitalism’s greed against it. When he signed his $147.7 million contract, it was obvious that his salary bore little relation to his actual production. In fact, the Wolves’ owner Glen Taylor made Wiggins promise he’d become a better player before Taylor gave him the money. Said Taylor at the time, “I’m speculating that his contribution to the team will be more in the future…. He can’t be paid just for what he’s doing today. He’s got to be better.”
Taylor, a former Republican state senator and octogenarian billionaire who is widely regarded as one of the NBA’s worst owners, has never gotten better at his own job since buying the Wolves in 1994. They’ve made it to the playoffs nine times in 27 seasons, in a league where more than half the teams make the playoffs in any given year. During that time during Taylor’s guidance, they’ve advanced out of the first round just once. And yet Taylor, who bought the team for $94 million, recently sold it for $1.5 billion. If Wiggins is overpaid, then Taylor is criminally so.
The owner of Wiggins’ current team (and the guy currently paying his salary) is Joe Lacob, a billionaire venture capitalist who amassed his fortunes at scandal-ridden multinational firms like Kleiner Perkins and Booz Allen Hamilton. Like Taylor and most NBA owners in general, Lacob is an unlikable dork whose riches multiply each year regardless of how good or bad his decisions may be, because having a lot of money is the most effective way to make more money. These people are our real enemies—the ones who deserve our contempt and derision. (The reason they don’t, compared to “spoiled” athletes like Wiggins, is mostly because their offenses are less visible and involve more steps). The Lacobs and Taylors of the world are mugging society in a dark alley. Meanwhile, people like Wiggins are picking their pockets as they strut away laughing. It might not be much in the scheme of things, but there’s some catharsis in seeing the Big Bad Guys get hosed now and again.
Does this make Wiggins a saint? No. To be honest, he didn’t seem like a particularly fun or interesting guy even before he started whining about being “forced” to get the COVID vaccine. But you shouldn’t have to be a saint to survive in this world. And if you’re a worker who refuses to leave it all on the court for a boss who’d leave you out in the cold if it meant a better quarterly earnings report, you can find vicarious delight every time Wiggins goes 4-13 with five turnovers in a big game.
He just doesn’t care, and it’s fine.
*P.S. Yes, this is the first Floater in a long time. There are a number of reasons for the hiatus and none of them are easy to address here (perhaps anywhere). But in the future you can expect new stories on a more regular basis.