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SALT LAKE CITY — Like any good sibling, Nick Wiggins was right there with younger brother Andrew as he was selected first overall in the 2014 NBA Draft.
“I was sitting right beside him,” Nick said of that paramount day for the Wiggins family.
Nick knows he’ll forever be linked to Andrew at the very mention of his last name. The NBA’s 2014 Rookie of the Year has been the fuel for a LeBron James-level hype train since age 16, with many tabbing him the game’s next megastar before he’d even stepped foot on a college floor.
But where some older brothers might find pangs of jealousy at their junior sibling occupying so much of the limelight, it’s just love for Nick.
“We’re like best friends,” he told KSL. “We’re very close.”
He welcomes questions about Andrew and traces both of their successes back to family as well. Their parents, Mitchell and Marita, were All-American NCAA athletes and both belong to the Florida State Athletic Hall of Fame. Mitchell played six NBA seasons and Marita won two silver medals for Canada in the 1984 Olympics.
Nick is proud of his younger brother for the way he’s helped carry on their legacy.
“My parents, they [were] great athletes in their times, too,” he said. “So [Andrew’s] been engraved with that and he wears it very well on his shoulder and represents our family very well.”
Here at summer league, though, Nick is looking to forge his own path.
He played in the Las Vegas summer tournament with the Sacramento Kings last year, where he says he learned a lot from being around the professional atmosphere — something he also got a dose of in a brief stop in Germany’s Bundesliga directly out of college. A winning culture was something he picked up along the way as well.
“We won [Las Vegas Summer League] last year in Sacramento,” he said. “That’s what I’m planning to do this year.”
Each stop has been a building block and this summer is no different. He spent 28 games with the Jazz’s D-League affiliate, the Idaho Stampede, this past season and time in the Jazz organization did him well.
“This year’s a little different for me, coming in and playing with the Jazz,” he said. “I know more of the system — I played with their D-League team. It’s been a great experience so far, we’re 2-0 and looking to keep building.”
Through it all, diligent effort has been the consistent theme. Wiggins says it’s something he and Andrew used as mutual motivation growing up, a trait they surely picked up from a successful athletic lineage. It’s the first thing he mentions when asked to define Andrew’s phenomenal success.
“Just hard work,” Nick said. “He knows the definition of hard work, and he’s seen what I went through going through junior college and stuff like that, just having nothing handed to me.”
Nick knows it, too, perhaps even more distinctly. His path hasn’t been quite as star-studded, quite as preordained. He’s had to struggle to prove himself at every level, from junior college to Wichita State, from Germany to the NBA D-League.
But when he eventually finds his way into the big leagues, will Andrew get any sort of cushion when they meet on the court?
“Definitely not,” Nick said with a laugh. “That’s tough love, man. That’s my brother and I wish the best for him, but if we have to get on the court together and play against each other. I’m going to go at him like an enemy.”
