Andrew Wiggins’ refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine — as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, and backed by ESPN’s reporting — is a near-perfect intersection of inanity.
Along Stupid Boulevard, the main road through Stupid Town, there’s the attitude that Wiggins voiced in March, when he said of his decision not to get vaccinated, “I make my own decisions.” This framing has been idiotic all along, but only grows more so with full FDA approval of the vaccine, the millions of people who have been successfully vaccinated, and the fact that Wiggins and pretty much everyone else in the traffic of Stupid Boulevard has been vaccinated against measles, mumps, polio, and other diseases, in order to be able to do things like attend school — although, as far as that goes, an idiot in the Florida state Senate is now pushing back on all vaccines, even the ones that have worked for decades.
Wiggins was waiting for more information about the COVID vaccine six months ago? The information is in. The vaccine doesn’t prevent you from catching COVID entirely, but it does help you to avoid spreading it, as well as keeping you out of the hospital and, you know, alive.
Then, rolling down Stupid Street, right into the middle of downtown Stupid Town, is Wiggins’ basketball career. Wiggins is 26 now, and after seven seasons in the NBA, it’s pretty clear that he’s never going to live up to his lofty status as the No. 1 pick of the 2014 draft. It’s clear that the best players from that class are Joel Embiid, Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokić, Zach LaVine, and Julius Randle. And those are just the obvious ones, before you even talk about Bogdan Bogdanović, Clint Capela, Spencer Dinwiddie, Joe Harris, or Marcus Smart. If you put together a roster of only 2014 draft picks, Wiggins isn’t a rotation player, and might not even make the roster over Jordan Clarkson, Jerami Grant, and Jusuf Nurkić.
Still, Wiggins is a decent NBA player, and is coming off a solid statistical season with Golden State in which he made a career-high 47.7 percent of his shots, scored 18.6 points per game, and had the second-lowest turnover rate of his career.
That performance also came as part of a wildly disappointing season for his team, as Golden State finished eighth in the West, lost to the Lakers in the first play-in Game, then lost to the Grizzlies in the second play-in game to miss the playoffs.
Are there really going to be 14.9 shots per game for Wiggins to take once Klay Thompson and James Wiseman are back in the Golden State lineup? How about if this year’s two first-round picks, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody, are ready to make an impact? And if Golden State doesn’t need as much scoring from Wiggins, it’s easy for Steve Kerr to give his minutes to free agent signee Otto Porter Jr, who is superior to Wiggins at pretty much every non-scoring aspect of the game.
There’s also the simple fact that by being unvaccinated, Wiggins is going to make NBA life harder for himself, having to sit separately on planes and at team functions, as well as risking his availability to play because of his much greater chance of contracting a serious case of coronavirus.
Imagine having the chance to play with Thompson, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green, but deciding that because of some stuff you read on the internet, you’re willing to give it up and stand firm against a vaccine that isn’t just about a personal choice, but about protecting all the people around you.
At the intersection of Stupid Boulevard and Stupid Street, Wiggins arrives for his coronation as the new mayor of Stupid Town.
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