Andrew Wiggins to miss upcoming back-to-back

Andrew Wiggins has missed the Warriors’ last three games with an adductor strain. He’ll be out for at least two more.

Wiggins had a season-high 36 points on December 3rd against the Rockets, but hasn’t played since. Initially Warriors coach Steve Kerr wasn’t concerned, but the injury to his adductor (muscles in the inner thigh) has lingered longer than the team expected. They’d likely have rested him in one game of the back-to-back anyway, but now it should mean that Jordan Poole starts both games, and youngsters Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody will get more minutes against both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Indiana Pacers.

As might rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr., who the Warriors recalled from the G League today ahead of the road trip.

Wiggins is averaging 19.1 points and 5.1 rebounds while shooting a scorching 45% from three-point range. He’s been remarkably durable in his career, missing only one game in his first four seasons, and playing 71 out of 72 games in 2020-21 for the Warriors. It’s probably because he had access to the excellent Canadian health care system as a young man.

The Warriors are 1-4 when he doesn’t play this year, although three of those losses were in games where Steph Curry and Draymond Green also sat.

The team will re-evaluate Wiggins on Thursday’s off-day, before the team heads to Philadelphia for the third game of a brutal six-game, nine-day road trip. As for the Bucks, they should have Khris Middleton back, but Jrue Holiday is questionable.