{"id":185418,"date":"2025-07-21T13:37:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T13:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/185418\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T13:37:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T13:37:06","slug":"okc-thunder-wing-turns-in-stellar-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/185418\/","title":{"rendered":"OKC Thunder wing turns in stellar season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: As an annual end-of-season exercise, The Oklahoman publishes a series of report cards on each of the Thunder\u2019s main roster players. Grades will be curved relative to role and expectations. Next up: Aaron Wiggins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s retrace Aaron Wiggins<\/a>\u2019 career arc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Greensboro, North Carolina, native was a three-year player at Maryland \u2014\u00a0not a full-time starter until his junior season. The Thunder drafted Wiggins with the 55th pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. Wiggins was in a Thunder draft class with Josh Giddey<\/a>, Tre Mann<\/a> and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl<\/a>. Wiggins, the last of those Thunder picks, is the only one remaining in OKC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins signed a two-way contract, was promoted to a standard deal during his rookie season and last summer signed a five-year, $47 million extension.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And somewhere amid all of that, Aaron Wiggins saved basketball<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old wing is coming off the best season of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins averaged 12 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 0.8 steals \u2014\u00a0all career-highs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins had three games of 30-plus points, including one 40-point game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was efficient, with shooting splits of 49% FG\/38% 3FG\/83% FT. Those numbers dipped drastically in the playoffs to 40%\/36%\/77%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He more than made up for his playoff slump with 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting in the Thunder\u2019s Game 2 win against the Pacers in the NBA Finals. Wiggins was a team-best plus-24 in his 21 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins stole the show with an epic speech before the Thunder\u2019s championship parade. Another moment that added to a remarkable career arc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Thunder exits NBA Summer League with ‘a lot of positives’ after semifinal loss vs Hornets<\/a><\/p>\n

Pre-order our new book on Thunder’s first title<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaron Wiggins by the numbers<\/p>\n

41: Wiggins scored a career-high 41 points (16-of-30) in a February win against the Kings. He also had a career-high 14 rebounds in that game. Wiggins is one of eight players in Thunder history to have a 40-point game. The others: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Paul George, James Harden, Lu Dort and Jalen Williams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

22.9: Wiggins, in his fourth year with the Thunder, averaged his most minutes per game (22.9) since his rookie season (24.2). He made 26 starts, also the most since his rookie year (35). Wiggins ranked fifth on the team in total minutes played behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Lu Dort and Cason Wallace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

15.9: In the playoffs, the Thunder outscored opponents by 15.9 points per 100 possessions when Wiggins was on the floor. Wiggins\u2019 15.9 net rating in the playoffs was second-best on the Thunder behind Kenrich Williams\u2019 16.6 net rating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Mussatto: Best part of new OKC Thunder arena? It will be built with basketball in mind.<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaron Wiggins offseason homework\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins\u2019 offense has steadily improved \u2014\u00a0to the point where he\u2019s a go-to scorer on some bench units \u2014\u00a0but sometimes he\u2019s the weak link defensively. Granted, that says more about his teammates than it does Wiggins, a more than serviceable defender. He\u2019s a bit of a tweener \u2014\u00a0not quite quick enough to hang with shifty guards and not big enough to handle the most physical of forwards. As he gets stronger, Wiggins will become a better option against the latter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Former Thunder forward Darius Bazley suffers ‘heartbreaking’ injury in NBA Summer League<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaron Wiggins grade: A-\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiggins, like other Thunder role players, had an uneven postseason. He\u2019s still deserving of an \u201cA\u201d, though. Wiggins played a real role, and played it well, on a 68-win team. Good luck finding a more reliable seventh man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Thunder Alley is back in the new arena design. Here’s what that actually means<\/a><\/p>\n

Thunder report card schedule\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his championship parade address, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt announced that Thunder chairman Clay Bennett, general manager Sam Presti, coach Mark Daigneault and every Thunder player would be honored with their own official day in Oklahoma City.\u00a0We\u2019re following Holt\u2019s schedule, publishing each player\u2019s report card on their respective day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: As an annual end-of-season exercise, The Oklahoman publishes a series of report cards on each of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[260,1289,7,311,98,54,79,70,85,6,12,67,310,475,179,3966,3965,61,134,65,132,66,83,55,64,312,63,82,3681],"class_list":{"0":"post-185418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-aaron","9":"tag-aaron-wiggins","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-city","12":"tag-draft","13":"tag-modular","14":"tag-modular-story","15":"tag-national","16":"tag-national-sports","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nba-draft","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-oklahoma","21":"tag-oklahoma-city","22":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","23":"tag-oklahomacity","24":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","25":"tag-overall","26":"tag-overall-positive","27":"tag-point","28":"tag-positive","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-news","31":"tag-story","32":"tag-the","33":"tag-thunder","34":"tag-to","35":"tag-to-the-point","36":"tag-wiggins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114891498821430234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}