The Warriors Are Apparently Playing Hardball With Andrew Wiggins Which Is Preventing Him From Playing For Team Canada In The Olympics

Alex Goodlett. Getty Images.

I'm sorry, what? 

When I first saw this tweet, my first thought was that Andrew Wiggins was in a contract year/extension eligible and the Warriors were holding that over his head as a way to prevent him from playing in the Olympics. But then once I looked up his deal and saw he still had a 2+1, things got much more confusing

The idea of a team preferring one of their players not to participate in the Olympics or FIBA competition isn't new, especially when it comes to injuries. We just saw the Celts do this with Porzingis during EuroBasket after they watched Danilo Gallinari tear his ACL in the FIBA competition playing Italy the year prior, but in that case, it was because KP got hurt in practice or whatever leading up to the games, so it made sense.

But with Wiggins, what is the "hardball" being played? It's clear they want to trade Wiggins and in order to get the biggest return possible he needs to be healthy, so that part makes sense. But given he's not a free agent, how does this prevent him from playing for Team Canada? My only guess is if they don't give him permission and he still somehow plays, does that void his contract or something? 

To me that would be some sort of "hardball" approach.

"If you play, we're voiding the final $75M+ if your deal"

Pretty much takes the decision out of Wiggins' hands I'd say. If that's actually a thing that NBA teams can do, I certainly don't ever remember hearing about something like that before. If that were the case, why don't more teams do it with their star players who they don't want to trade, but just want to keep healthy? The funny part of this is you know who the Warriors have no problem letting play?

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I see a certain Warrior in that bottom left corner who seems to be pretty important to what GS does, so the whole situation seems a bit messy. 

Where this gets confusing is does this mean the Warriors won't trade Wiggins for any player currently playing in the Olympics in fear they get hurt and ruin the return? Probably not right? It's not as if this is the first time NBA players have ever played in the Olympics before, so I would imagine any team interesting in trading for a player who is playing for their country accepts the fact that shit can happen. You know why? Shit can happen anywhere! Klay Thompson tore his achilles working out. Injuries happen!

Really, all this does is highlight what a disaster this entire Wiggins/GS situation is. They probably should have traded him earlier coming off that extremely fake 2022 postseason run (sigh), but for some reason, they held off only to not make the playoffs. Now his value is most likely at its lowest to the point where the Warriors will probably have to accept 65 cents on the dollar, because after this latest stunt, there's no way you can bring him back come October. 

We've seen a lot of shit over the years, but I can't really remember a team essentially forbidding a player from playing for his country and holding his contract over his head as a way to do it (if that's what's happening here) all while not even wanting that player on your team anymore. 

Between this and the whole Klay debacle, things seem to be going great!