Warriors assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse clarified his comments about former Golden State wing Andrew Wiggins’ defensive abilities in an interview with 95.7 The Game’s Matt Steinmetz and Daryle Johnson on Wednesday.
“Andrew, I mean, great smile every day, he did what you asked him to do, and I think it was kind of taken out of context where I felt the difference between Andrew and Jimmy [Butler] – we were talking about small guards, and I didn’t think [Wiggins] guarded small guards really well,” Stackhouse said beside Steinmetz and Johnson.
“That’s why I like to do interviews like this where you got the cameras and the inflection and see the scenario, as opposed to just somebody leaving off the first part of what I said."
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Stackhouse has nothing but respect for Wiggins, who spent five-and-a-half seasons with the Warriors, and doesn’t think of the former Golden State wing as a lackluster defender entirely; what the assistant coach seemingly meant was that Butler, who Wiggins was traded to the Miami Heat for, simply is better at defending smaller ball handlers.
Here’s what Stackhouse originally told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ron Kroichick on Feb. 21:
“I personally didn’t think he was great against the other team’s best player,” Stackhouse told Kroichick. “He was better against those ‘next’ guys. We’d throw him on [the top players] sometimes, because of the reputation of what he did in ’22 and whatnot, but I saw separation.
“If you really want to be a good defender, you have to close that distance a little.”
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At 6-foot-8, Wiggins has been considered a two-way wing since entering the league as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. And Wiggins’ phenomenal defensive effort against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics during the Warriors’ 2022 finals run furthered the sentiment.
Stackhouse is thrilled with how the Butler era has started in the Bay. But don’t get it twisted: Stackhouse doesn’t think lowly of a forever Golden State fan favorite in Wiggins.