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Andrew Wiggins will be a free agent next summer unless the Golden State Warriors sign him to an extension before July. As the 2022-23 season dawns, though, Wiggins isn't worried about the uncertainty of his long-term future, instead focused solely on helping his current team defend its title.
Winning back-to-back championships isn't the only goal Wiggins has this season, though. After cementing himself as one of basketball's best two-way wings during the playoffs, the former No. 1 overall pick wants more of the individual recognition that eluded him early in his career.
“I would love to be an All-Star again,” Wiggins said, per Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “I would love to win another championship. And I would love to be on the All-Defensive team — that’s something I’m aiming for right out of the gate.”
Wiggins was voted an All-Star starter for the Western Conference last season after playing some of the best basketball of his career out of the gate. But it's also undeniable that a deluge of his votes came after K-Pop superstar BamBam, also a Warriors global ambassador, urged his millions of social media followers to vote for Wiggins.
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His inclusion in the All-Star Game would've been far more warranted had it been based on his play during the postseason, when Wiggins was arguably Golden State's second-best player. The All-Defense ambitions he expressed multiple times throughout the offseason seem plenty realistic after he suffocated Jayson Tatum in the NBA Finals and hounded Luka Doncic one round earlier, also emerging as a game-changing rebounder on the Warriors' title run.
Wiggins is surely behind Jordan Poole in Golden State's extension pecking order, and there's still a chance Draymond Green's contractual status is a bigger priority for the front office even as he remains away from the team following his vicious punch to Poole. Wiggins has no plans of going anywhere, though, content to let his agents handle contract negotiations whether he puts pen to paper this season or come free agency next July.
“I feel like this is a place where I can complete my game,” he told NBC Sports Bay Area.
Wiggins will no doubt receive the accolades wants if that proves the case, not to mention play another indispensable role in the Warriors' successful title defense.
