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    • Andrew Wiggins, Steph Curry form Warriors backcourt in preseason win – NBC Sports Bay Area and California
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    Andrew Wiggins, Steph Curry form Warriors backcourt in preseason win – NBC Sports Bay Area and California

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    For the first time in six months, the Warriors got a microscopic look at Andrew Wiggins in an NBA game on Tuesday night. They didn’t expect much, and they didn’t get much, while he scraped off quite a bit of rust.

    But the presence of Wiggins and position gave a taste of what is possible. And sensible.

    Wiggins didn’t start at his usual small forward position, but at shooting guard, where he has never started a regular-season game with Golden State. He shared the backcourt with point guard Stephen Curry, a role made legendary by the two-way talents of top prospect Klay Thompson.

    Curry and Wiggins made up two-fifths of a lineup — along with Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis — that might be the most balanced the Warriors can put together.

    “The key is JK and Wiggs doing the talking,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters in Las Vegas after a 111-97 win over the Los Angeles Lakers at T-Mobile Arena. “It puts a lot of pressure on the teams. And they set a good tone tonight, the way they went downhill, with or without the ball, they were away. I really like the way both guys played and the impact they can make with their athleticism and strength.

    Wiggins played 21 minutes and finished with 11 points on 3-for-9 shooting from the field, including 0-for-3 from distance. He was 5-of-5 from the line and added one assist and one steal.

    The minuscule sample size of Golden State’s fifth starting lineup in five games offered nothing explanatory — let alone definitive — especially since Wiggins, who missed most of training camp, was new to the action.

    Kerr has been eyeing a possible Curry-Wiggins backcourt for nearly a year, ever since he acknowledged the growing likelihood that Klay Thompson would leave Golden State. Kerr has long viewed Thompson and Wiggins, similarly sized and two-way, as interchangeable wings; this was a chance to explore that idea.

    While Wiggins will never be the deadeye shooter that Thompson is, he is now a better ball defender. He has the tools to do a fair to excellent job against most of the league’s playmakers, and that was one of Golden State’s most visible weaknesses last season. General manager Mike Dunleavy addressed this in July by signing De’Anthony Melton, an elite point-of-attack defender. Gary Payton II, who missed most of last season, is another on-ball hellcat.

    But Wiggins is leaner and offers more offensive versatility. Since joining the Warriors in February 2020, he is shooting 38.1 percent from beyond the arc. Not Klay, but very solid. In 2021-22, when Wiggins made the Western Conference All-Star team, he shot 39.3 percent from deep. Again, not Klay, but more than acceptable.

    One of Kerr’s clear messages to Wiggins is to increase his three-point shot percentage.

    “I already told him: six 3-pointers a game,” Kerr told Kerith Burke of NBC Sports Bay Area last week. “He’s a very good three-point shooter. Last year it was slightly less. But since he’s been here: 39, 40 percent. I want a lot of threes, and I want a lot of attacking at the rim. Last year he shot over 80 percent from the foul line in the second half of the year.

    “He looks very comfortable in every aspect of the game. And let’s face it, with Klay gone, we need him to step up and be our second goalscorer after Steph, and we know he’s more than capable of doing that.”

    If Wiggins shoots another six threes per game, that will free up more space for Kuminga, whose 3-ball looks better but could always be secondary to his ability to attack the rim. Both were in the starting lineup because Kerr’s dream scenario is to play them together – they have two athletic 6-foot-4 wings to challenge opponents on either side.

    While Melton is a legitimate scoring threat, it’s tough to ask him to approach 20 points per game. That’s more than double his career average. And GP2 is a defensive player who is good for a few corner triples, but not for big scores.

    Wiggins, on the other hand, is averaging 18.5 points per game for his career. He has surpassed the 20-per-game mark four times in his 10-year career, all with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

    With Thompson gone, Wiggins is no longer a good third scoring option. The question is whether he now becomes a good second option. He has the tools, and now he has to make the most of them.

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