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It's always naive to trust what you hear on Media Day, especially when players are tasked with giving inherently loaded responses regarding their long-term future. Optimism reigns across the league when a new season dawns. Unless someone really wants to hint at or force their impending departure, players typically toe the team line with a mix of measured deflection and sunny positivity when asked about extensions, free agency and trades.
Any related agendas can't be too thinly veiled anyway. Nothing drives the league's popularity like the mere specter of player movement, and contract details are public knowledge now. If reported rumors about a player's future don't swirl, rampant speculation definitely will.
Take this tidbit on the Los Angeles Lakers' potential interest in Andrew Wiggins should he reach free agency next summer. Spitballing on Los Angeles' plans after 2022-23, a Western Conference executive told Sean Deveney of Heavy Sports that Wiggins would be higher on the Lakers' free agent wishlist than Kyrie Irving.
“They’re going to look at Kyrie Irving, of course, but he is probably not their top choice. They will look at Jerami Grant, who they liked for a long time, same with Myles Turner. I think Andrew Wiggins would be a big prize there because he can play two-ways.”
Where Wiggins should rank in that theoretical pecking order isn't the point here, but it's safe to say Los Angeles would come calling next July if all things were equal. Any team in basketball would benefit from the consistent two-way presence he provided during the Golden State Warriors' championship run, let alone one in absolutely dire need of quality wing play. That version of Wiggins would be an impact player anywhere.
But unfortunately for the rest of the league, there's still no indication he wants to leave the Warriors.
Wiggins' answers to questions about a possible contract extension at Golden State's Media Day were so revealingly nonchalant that they deserve to be taken at face value. He's fully confident the “bag” he and Jordan Poole popped bottles to in the Warriors' championship locker room is coming, genuinely unconcerned with extension talks between his agents and the front office as his team's title defense begins.
“It doesn't really weigh in a lot,” Wiggins told Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area when asked about his contractual status. “I play basketball, and I just let my agents worry about all of that. My plan is just to hoop, you know, and then whatever happens happens.”
Pressed whether he'd prefer to put pen to paper on a new deal with the Warriors before free agency, Andrew Wiggins again made clear where his priorities lie.
“Nah, I know my agents and team probably have plan or something,” he said. “Right now I'm just focused on the season and what's coming ahead.”
Listening to Andrew Wiggins' presser again, struck by his truly nonchalant response to @MontePooleNBCS about an extension. He's not AT ALL concerned w/contract status right now.
"My plan is just to hoop & whatever happens happens…I know my agents & team probably have a plan." pic.twitter.com/GtSMGjVHee
— Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) September 28, 2022
Nothing has changed for Wiggins as the championship afterglow fades.
He said he'd “love to stay” in Golden State moments after winning his first championship, reiterating that desire publicly several times since. Wiggins has found his basketball home with the Warriors, and franchise power brokers—from Joe Lacob, to Myers, to Steve Kerr, to Stephen Curry—definitely feel the same way.
Golden State already broke the record for total payroll, though, and Lacob drew a future line in the sand this summer that fell below a rumored $400 million maximum. Myers admitted as recently as last week that the Warriors may not be able to bring back each of Wiggins, Draymond Green and Jordan Poole if they all hit the open market come July.
An extension is still on the table for Andrew Wiggins. He was the Warriors' second-best player for the vast majority of the Finals, at times outplaying Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown with a championship on the line. With Green turning 33 in March and Poole presenting roughly the same strengths and weaknesses of a late-peak Curry, keeping Wiggins could be of most importance to Golden State whether he gets an extension or not.
But that's not the only factor complicating Wiggins' proposed move to Southern California next season.
The Lakers are still mulling a Russell Westbrook trade, looking for a package of players that would vault them up the championship hierarchy despite surrendering just one future first-round pick. There's a very good chance that pie-in-the-sky deal never materializes. If Rob Pelinka ultimately caves and includes both 2027 and 2029 first-rounders in a Westbrook trade, what type of return could realistically be had that would substantially raise Los Angeles' title chances without adding any future salary? Keep dreaming, Lakers fans.
A far more plausible and depressing scenario for Los Angeles is retaining Westbrook past the trade deadline, letting his albatross of a contract expire and entering free agency with only James, Anthony Davis and rookie Max Christie on the books for 2023-24.
Wasting what could be James' final season of All-NBA basketball for $40 million of cap space is a pill that might be too tough to swallow. On the other hand, locking themselves into an aging, expensive and perhaps mediocre core by trading Westbrook—plus those two unprotected first-rounders, remember—for high-level role players like Myles Turner and Buddy Hield could create an even darker timeline for the Lakers.
Until James and Davis re-cement themselves among the league's true upper-echelon, Los Angeles isn't going anywhere regardless.
You hardly need an anonymous executive to broach the Lakers' prospective interest in a player like Andrew Wiggins. But as well as he'd fit next to James and Davis, too many stars would have to align for the purple-and-gold to be considered a serious threat to lure Wiggins from Golden State at this point in the league cycle.
No worries, though. At least the random front office member will surely be back to offer more speculative fodder throughout 2022-23.
