Kurtenbach: The Warriors will only go as far as Andrew Wiggins will take them — with or without Steph Curry

Amid a lost season, things were starting to come together for Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins a few weeks ago. His game appeared to find a rhythm, and the Warriors were playing great basketball.

The wing was starting to look like the guy who was the second-best player on a title team less than 24 months ago. This was encouraging, promising, and necessary.

Then Wiggins left the team for a week (for personal reasons), and that momentum evaporated.

Then the basketball gods, in their infinite cruelty, turned Steph Curry’s ankle.

That means that now, more than ever, the Warriors need Wiggins to be that guy again.

It’s fair to wonder if he will rise to the occasion.

It’s fair to wonder if he can rise to the occasion.

And if he does, indeed, fail to lift his game, it won’t take much imagination to see him playing on a different team next season

Now, was Wiggins the sole reason the Warriors lost on Saturday night to a lowly Spurs team that arrived in San Francisco without their two best players? Of course not.

But for a player who so often blends in with the hardwood — someone who seems to pride himself on being neither seen nor heard during games — his inability to raise his game against the Spurs stuck out.

And so long as Curry is out of the lineup—the Warriors said they’ll evaluate his rolled ankle on Tuesday—Wiggins will be in the spotlight.

The Warriors’ fate rests on the team’s most mercurial player.

Buckle up.

This isn’t a new thing. The Warriors’ biggest issue all season is its lack of a true, bonafide No. 2.

They lack a Wiggins from the 2022 NBA Playoffs, even while they still have Wiggins on the roster.

Klay Thompson’s days of carrying an offense are over — even when Thompson has an “on” night, like on Saturday, his success fails to create a ripple effect through the entire team.

Perhaps Jonathan Kuminga can be the kind of player who can spearhead a team in due time. But his performance on Saturday showed that his time is not now. Sure, he scored 26 points on Saturday, but far too many were empty calories in the fourth quarter. His game has grown impressively, but it still has a ways to go.

Thompson and Kuminga are tertiary players for this Warriors team. Sometimes, they can be the No. 2 to a brilliant No. 1 like Curry — a rising tide lifts all ships, and Curry is a king tide. But without Curry, the truth of those players becomes unavoidable.

But if Thompson and Kuminga are third options, what does that make the Wiggins (11 points, six rebounds, one assist) we saw on Saturday?

A fourth? A fifth? Irrelevant?

Whatever it is, it’s far less than what the Warriors require.

If this team will only go as far as Curry will take them, in his absence, it will only go as far as Wiggins.

And even when Curry returns, Wiggins’ role is critical. If this team has any ideas of doing something interesting this fall, Wiggins will have to be doing something interesting on the court.

This is the second time I’ve written this sort of column this season. The stakes were not nearly as high the last time, in November.

But it’s inauspicious that the same questions of Wiggins are being asked in March.

And no, I don’t think holding Wiggins to a standard he set not long ago is too much. It is a standard that landed him a new four-year contract with the Warriors, after all.

Luckily, Wiggins, like me, has an opportunity to rewrite. The Warriors play the Spurs again on Monday night.

The Warriors bet on Wiggins at the NBA’s trade deadline. Steve Kerr championed for him with the media — he was insistent that Wiggins would round into form. To date, we’ve only seen flashes — hints at the excellence he once embodied during the spring of 2022.

We’ll only find out once the season ends if that bet will pay out, but early returns are not encouraging — even with that improving stretch before his excused absence.

If Wiggins is going to be anything more than he has already been this season — if that potential for excellence still exists — it needs to arrive now.

Otherwise, this Warriors team, tasked with keeping its head above water with Curry sidelined, runs the risk of drowning.