SAN FRANCISCO -- The presentation was a long time coming. His teammates enjoyed the moment every bit as much as him. Finally holding the trophy had to be a sigh of relief, at least a little.
There was no doubt who the 2022 NBA Finals MVP was going to be. Steph Curry earned his unanimous honor, checking another box off his Hall of Fame career.
However, there were whispers of another candidate. Outlets needed headlines and producers were begging for an ounce of debate. If it weren't for Curry's historic series and season-saving Game 4 performance, Andrew Wiggins would have gone from once being tagged a letdown as a former No. 1 overall draft pick to an eventual Finals MVP.
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In a world where a silver second place trophy that reads "Damn, He's Good" was handed out, Wiggins would have hoisted that up, along with the Larry O'Brien Trophy. What Wiggins did do, though, was prove who he now can be and how important he is for the Warriors' future.
"100 percent," Draymond Green said Friday at Chase Center after Warriors practice. "I think you really just saw him really affect the game in so many different ways. He's always affected the game offensively, whether it was here or Minnesota. But to see him affect the game the way he did defensively, to see him affect the game with the offensive rebounding and defensive rebounding the way he did -- it definitely showed what everyone thought he could become.
"He's put that work in and built that confidence to become that and committed himself through the process of doing that. It was huge."
Wiggins in his second full season with the Warriors was named to his first All-Star team. He averaged 17.2 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 39.3 percent from 3-point range and becoming a defensive for Golden State. Throughout his career, Wiggins proved he can put up numbers. This time, he was able to show he also is a playoff performer.
Golden State Warriors
Through the first three rounds of the playoffs, Wiggins put together four double-doubles in a 16-game span, including a 27-point, 11-rebound game with three steals in the Western Conference Finals. He averaged 15.8 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, shooting 48 percent from the field and 35.3 on 3-pointers over the first three rounds of the playoffs.
All before he proved he's a 16-game winner. Wiggins became an All-Star last season. He reached a new level in the playoffs. Then in the Finals alone, he became forever remembered by Dub Nation.
Against the Boston Celtics in the Finals' six-game series, Wiggins averaged 18.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks per game.
The computers saw the Celtics as the better team than the Warriors. So did a handful of experts. Wiggins is a major reason so many were debunked. His skill set was as needed as anyone's against the young, strong and athletic bunch that Boston trotted out on the floor.
"Well you have to guard both [Jayson] Tatum and [Jaylen] Brown and they're two of the toughest covers in the league because of their size and skills and athleticism," Steve Kerr said Friday. "Andrew played a key role defensively. And then, he's always been a great secondary scorer for us. Steph obviously had a monster Finals so they had to pay a lot of attention to him and there were some really key possessions where Andrew got isolated with someone and just went right to the rim and scored.
"He got a lot of key offensive rebounds in that series for us, putbacks. Just did everything necessary to win."
Which is why it's so disappointing Wiggins won't be playing Saturday in San Francisco vs. the Celtics. The Celtics are missing Al Horford and Robert Williams, but Wiggins' Finals performance almost felt like an origin story mixed with redemption.
A right adductor strain will keep Wiggins out before being re-evaluated Monday. For how great and needed he was in June, the first Finals rematch between the Warriors and Celtics won't feel whole without him.
Curry's Game 4 savagery at TD Garden will go down in the history books. The next game, it was Wiggins who gave Golden State the exact performance it needed to take a three-games-to-two series lead. Wiggins scored 26 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a 10-point win.
Three nights later, Wiggins walked away with 18 points, six rebounds, five assists, four steals and four 3-pointers in Game 6 to become a champion. And that same player has shown up at the start of the regular-season for the Warriors after signing a four-year, $109 million contract extension on Oct. 15.
While putting up multiple career-bests across the board, Wiggins in the 22 games he has played is averaging 19.1 points per game, shooting 51.1 percent from the field and 45.0 percent from deep on 6.8 3-point attempts per game. The 27-year-old also is adding 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game.
"Now he's looked at as a totally different player," Green said. "He's an All-Star, probably going to be an All-Star again. As much as it is a lesson for him, it's a lesson for younger guys. You want to score the ball so much and it's great. Yeah, Wiggins was averaging 20 points and everybody was calling him a bust.
"Then you start playing some defense. Always been capable of defending, by the way. Then you make it a point to be a really, really good defender. Then you start rebounding the basketball and you're affecting winning and all of the sudden you're an All-Star.
"I think as good as it is for him, it's a lesson to younger guys. You got to affect the game in different ways."
The young player who can benefit most from popping in the tape of what Wiggins did in the Finals and how he did it is 20-year-old Jonathan Kuminga. Lately, he's giving the Warriors their own glimpse of a younger Wiggins.
Kuminga, coming off the bench but playing the Wiggins role, put together the most complete game of his young career Wednesday night in a devastating road loss to the Utah Jazz. Playing 29-plus minutes, Kuminga scored a season-high 24 points on a highly-efficient 10-for-13 from the field -- something Wiggins has excelled at this season. He also snagged five rebounds and dished four assists.
Here are Kuminga's averages in the four games that Wiggins has missed this season: 17.5 points on 55.1 percent shooting, 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game. How Kuminga is putting up these numbers is taking a page out of Wiggins' book: High energy, dedication on defense, running the floor, crashing the glass, utilizing his elite athleticism and taking smart shots.
"We need JK to continue to improve every day," Kerr said. "He's doing so well and he's come so far. But the exciting thing is there's still a lot of growth ahead and one of those areas is to become a consistent rebounder, because there's nothing that should keep him from doing so.
"He'll keep working and our players will keep mentoring him. We'll keep coaching him and I think he'll get better and better."
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The Warriors and Celtics squaring off with Wiggins sidelined is akin to your Christmas gift missing parts, buying a brand-new TV and getting the wrong batteries for the remote. It's just not right, pages are missing from the book.
What the Warriors dreamed of when they acquired Wiggins became reality in the Finals, unlocking new doors to what his prime can look like and who the Warriors can be for years to come. More than seven years younger is Kuminga, a prodigy who can learn from the lessons Wiggins has undergone and open the gates to the Warriors' future as the shiny prize whose bow is beginning to be unwrapped in front of us.