ATHENS, Ga. — In the nine years Paul Finebaum had been interviewing Kirby Smart, this was as animated as Finebaum had seen Smart. They were on set together last month on Georgia’s campus, a day before the Dawgs’ game against Tennessee. It was three days after the College Football Playoff committee had dropped Smart’s team out of the projected field, and Smart was not hiding his disgust.

“He was great on the air. Off the air, he was out of this world. I mean he was genuinely angry,” Finebaum recalled last week. “I appreciated his candor. But it was a remarkable shift, especially to the last two years.”

And Smart wasn’t done. A night later, he went off on the selection committee again during his ABC postgame interview. And Smart still wasn’t done: A few weeks later, Smart took an unprompted shot — maybe playful, maybe not — at SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who was standing a few feet away.

It has been refreshing for those who want good content. For those who have watched Smart and his sideline antics from afar, it may seem natural. But for those who have watched Smart closely through the years, it’s a stark change, and it says a lot about where Smart and No. 2 Georgia are as they get ready for their CFP quarterfinal.

Smart usually has tried to avoid making headlines, a trait he took from Nick Saban: Do your job, worry about your team, ignore the critics and outside noise. The tone was set the summer of Smart’s first year when then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh took a shot at Smart on Twitter about satellite camps. When he asked about it, Smart replied, “What tweet?” with a wry, knowing smile. He was ready to diffuse the story.

This season, Smart has been willing to light the fuse.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs will play Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. (Joshua L. Jones / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

After Georgia’s win at Texas, Smart didn’t hold back in his ESPN postgame interview after officials reversed a call in Texas’ favor when fans threw debris on the field: “You know, these players get the best out of me. And I’m so proud of these guys. Because nobody believed. Nobody gave us a chance. Your whole network doubted us. Nobody believed us. And then they try to rob us, with calls, in this place.”

The shot at the “College GameDay” analysts who picked against Georgia wasn’t new. Smart did that after his team’s second national championship win. But “they try to rob us” was uncharacteristic. Smart, a member of the NCAA rules committee, rarely criticized officiating and didn’t join in with Georgia fans belaboring calls after the 2018 national championship game. Now he was jumping in, despite actually winning the game.

After his team’s win over Tennessee, Smart vented his frustration at the CFP committee, once again in his ESPN postgame interview: “I don’t know what they look for. I really don’t know what they look for anymore. I would welcome anybody in that committee to come down to this league and play in this environment.”

And finally, in the interview after the SEC Championship Game win, Smart was asked what getting a first-round bye meant: “It means rest for a team that Greg Sankey and his staff sent on the road … all … year … long!”

GO DEEPER

Who does Georgia want to play: Notre Dame or Indiana?

Sankey stood stone-faced a few feet away but only because he couldn’t hear what Smart was saying amid audio issues on stage, according to people who were there. Not that Sankey and his staff could have been particularly thrilled with it; Georgia had just navigated that schedule to a conference championship, so Finebaum on his SEC Network show called Smart “out of line.” (The SEC championship in Atlanta came after three straight home games, so Georgia had been in its home state for almost a month.)

“I probably reacted a little quickly on that, not knowing how convoluted the story (on the stage) was,” Finebaum said. “But it was still a pretty dramatic moment for him.”

Smart was asked last month, after the Tennessee game, why he had been more outspoken this year. He shrugged and said it just has more to do with having more things to be outspoken about.

“The two years previous, I mean, there wasn’t a lot there,” he said. “The year that, we were 14-1 and 15-0, there’s not a lot of complaints. There’s not a lot to fight for. You take care of business on the field and handle your business. You don’t have to say a lot of things.

“That was a pretty unique situation if you’re referring to Texas. I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of anything like that, and I’m not … I wasn’t upset with them. I just didn’t understand, like, never seen that happen, but I would have said that any year.”

But the next thing Smart said got to the heart of the matter: “I just want to fight for my team and fight for our program because I think we’ve got a deserving group of young men who work really hard, and I’m sure every coach would fight for their guys.”

But this has come amid two years of bad publicity about his program. Ten Georgia players and one staff member have been arrested for driving-related offenses since a January 2023 car crash that killed a player and staff member. There have been arrests for non-driving issues. Given all that, you almost would expect Smart to take the opposite approach and be Mr. Nice Guy as the face of the program.

GO DEEPER

Is Kirby Smart ready to sit on Nick Saban’s vacated college football throne?

Finebaum, however, pointed out that Smart has chosen his words much more carefully when it comes to off-field issues.

“The one thing I’ll give him credit for is despite all the bad news in the offseason I think he navigated it very well,” Finebaum said. “And it didn’t seem to become a constant theme, like situations like that at other schools.”

Finebaum has another theory for Smart’s newfound candor: The pressure is gone. There’s no push for a three-peat or before that a repeat or before that trying to get the first national championship.

“Everything felt more tense (before). You could sense the gravity of the moment,” Finebaum said. “That was all gone a couple weeks ago in Athens. It was me against the world, and he seemed to like it very much.”

Smart has used that Georgia-against-the-world narrative before, especially en route to the second championship. It became such a punch line that Smart backed off it a bit. It was harder to play the disrespect card when Georgia was the consensus No. 1 team, even after not three-peating last year.

Then came this season’s run of on-field adversity. Smart took to calling his team the “never say die Dawgs.” They made things hard for themselves and played down to their competition, but there they still hoisted the SEC championship trophy.

Now it’s on to the Playoff where Georgia may be in the perfect position, at least to Smart’s liking: It’s not the favorite, especially having to go to its backup quarterback, so there are plenty of picks out there for the Bulldogs to be one-and-done in the tournament.

GO DEEPER

An expert on Carson Beck timeline: ‘I wouldn’t think he’s playing anytime soon’

Somehow, it could be argued that Georgia is playing with house money.

“Ultimately how the season ends is going to help frame the narrative,” Finebaum said. “If somehow Georgia wins the title with everything they’ve overcome, with the schedule, with the Carson Beck injury, I think it will elevate Georgia to an even higher status. And right now, I think they are at the very top shelf of college football. … But I think if (Georgia) can pull this thing off, it won’t make up for not winning a three-peat, but it’s going to put Georgia into a completely different stratosphere.”

(Top photo: Butch Dill / Getty Images)

Happy holidays, and prepare for the greatest gift: tennis returns tomorrow, December 27.

In the spirit of looking back on the previous season and remembering all the moments big and small that defined it, here is a compendium of tennis stories of all kinds from The Athletic’s tennis writers, Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare, with a few guest appearances. This is not a “best of,” but rather a “remember when?” and a “did that really happen?” as well as an opportunity to revisit the stories you may have missed.

Matt will hold up the front end of the year given Charlie’s joining for the full launch of tennis coverage in May. See you next season, or rather, tomorrow.  — James Hansen

“There is nothing quite like a comeback in tennis, a game that essentially punishes players for time away.

Ranking points disappear. There is no job protection the way there might be for an athlete in a team sport, with an organization committed to managing a rehabilitation, if only to salvage value from a contract. There are no practice starts without consequences in the minor leagues to ease the transition back to top-tier competition.

For older players, the game, the practice sessions, the matches, they all hurt more.”

Matt Futterman

“Mirra Andreeva showed up to tennis in the middle of last season, like the new kid at school whose mother or father has just been transferred into the local branch office.

One day, no one had ever heard of her, the next, she’s all anyone is talking about: 16 years old, three days into the online version of her junior year in high school, complaining about the homework and taking over this Australian Open.”

Matt Futterman

“There was Andy Murray (or was it an actor named Fraser McKnight?) looking very serious, sitting for a tell-all interview.

“The players, the matches, it’s all just made up,” he said. “Let’s face it, people are stupid, so they’ll buy anything.”

There was Novak Djokovic coming clean about his true identity as the actor Bert Critchley, practising ripping his shirt in front of a bathroom mirror and discussing his process of getting into character.

“I want to bring truth to Novak,” he said. “What is he thinking, what is he feeling, what would motivate him, if he was a real person?””

Matt Futterman

“Maybe one day his name will become household. Or maybe not. Tennis is a difficult business; only a tiny sample size of its athletes achieve enough to become part of the vernacular. But what Top Nidunjianzan already has done is extraordinary. In the 50 years since the ATP Tour started its singles ranking system, not a single player from Tibet had earned a single ranking point. Nidunjianzan has 20 of them and ranks 869th in the world.”

Dana O’Neil

“For several minutes, Alcaraz stood in the center of the court in his warm-up jacket, conveying his fears to Davis and a tournament supervisor. They assured him the random flying bee he might still see was harmless.

“If I see the bee, I cannot concentrate on the ball,” he told them.

Both are yellow after all.

Matt Futterman

“No one will ever know whether tennis would have experienced a surge in popularity had more of the best players let in the cameras the way some of the biggest stars in F1 and golf have in recent years for Drive to Survive and Full Swing, the golf equivalent. Still, in many ways, the failure of Break Point revealed some of the long-running fractures and countervailing interests throughout tennis, especially at a time when the best players treat access to their lives as their intellectual property.”

Matt Futterman

“We do compete in many countries that certainly reflect different cultures and value systems,” said Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour. “We certainly understand and respect that Saudi is something that provokes some very strong views.”

Matt Futterman

Challengers, Tashi and the film’s director Luca Guadagnino have plenty to say about that metaphysical quandary. They have plenty to say about the aggression-filled flow state two players enter when they are in the middle of a high-octane match, rhythmically pounding and pattering a ball back and forth across a net.

Challengers may not really be a tennis movie — but it has plenty to say about the quintessence of the sport.

Matt Futterman

“One normal day of Corentin Moutet, that’s all we ask. It will never happen.”

James Hansen

“Initially, it was thought that the bottle might have been thrown deliberately because footage of the incident obscured where the bottle had come from. However, video shows the bottle slipping out of a spectactor’s backpack as they bend over to attempt to get the attention of the 24-time Grand Slam champion.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“The knee-jerk reaction is that women don’t bring in as much money as the men and if they did, they wouldn’t be second-class citizens. Yet consider a counter-narrative: during the 55-year history of the sport’s modern era, if women had received the same exposure and investment as men and didn’t have to confront countless barriers and aggressions, maybe they would be bringing in the same amount of money.”

Matt Futterman

“The dominance becomes self-fulfilling once she wins a few games and she and her opponent both feel like they know what’s coming next, so the starts and ends of points become more inevitable; what happens in between is less important.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“The world of invention is full of products and gadgets intended for one purpose that found their groove with another.

Bubble wrap was supposed to be three-dimensional wallpaper. Viagra was a new blood pressure medication. The slinky was a surefire way to secure naval instruments in rough seas.

Umpire-Head-Camera, welcome to the ranks of unintended consequences.”

Matt Futterman

Corentin Moutet was just one of the players to fall victim. (Eurosport)

“The weeks before the French Open had been filled with doubts. He had barely been able to practice. It seemed like what he had experienced during the previous year, and even for some months before that, was coming for him all over again.

Back then, Alcaraz was starting to gain a reputation as a beautiful but possibly brittle player. His young body, so fast and so strong, way beyond the level of most 20/21-year-olds, somehow kept betraying him.”

Matt Futterman

“All the pent-up emotion that Murray must have been feeling for days, weeks, months, even the seven years since he limped off this court with a hip injury against Sam Querrey and was never the same again, could pour out.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“For the second time in five weeks, Paolini, the diminutive Italian, has forced everyone in the sport to forget everything they thought they knew about the modern version of tennis. She has reminded them of one of the things, maybe even the thing, that makes tennis special.”

Matt Futterman

“After Krejcikova left the court, she saw her name next to Novotna’s on the board that lists the champions on a wall inside the All England Club. Emotion overcame her then.

Afterwards, she said she had been dreaming of Novotna lately. In the dreams, they are talking. She didn’t want to say about what.

“It’s a little personal,” she said.”

Matt Futterman

Barbora Krejcikova’s Wimbledon title stretched back into her tennis youth. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)

“Andy Murray made you care.

That was his superpower. There were better players in his era; there were more stylish ones. But none possessed the ability to make you invest emotionally in their matches as much as Murray did.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“I have no cartilage in my knees,” Bopanna repeated several times during a recent interview, emphasizing the absurdity of what he has accomplished despite all that. He shook his head. He shrugged his shoulders. Then he recalled asking a relative, a yoga teacher, if she could help.

At the time, it was not a particularly serious question. The answer ended up changing his life.

Matt Futterman

Aged seven, Zheng went to Wuhan with her father to play in front of a coach. She impressed so much that she would stay there to train — alone.

“Now I can tell him I made history,” she said, beaming with the brightest of smiles.

Matt Futterman

“Djokovic went to the center of the court and knelt in prayer, crossing his chest, his closed eyes looking skyward with his arms raised in the air. He crouched on the clay, crying more, his hands trembling.”

Matt Futterman

“All of these processes follow the Tennis Anti-Doping Program (TADP) regulations. But that hasn’t stopped the fury from Sinner’s fellow players.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“Gauff knows this isn’t about just about her. During her lifetime, Black Americans have become some of the biggest stars in tennis and in some cases have transcended the sport, especially in the U.S.”

Matt Futterman

“Most people can envisage dating someone who does the same job or works for the same company. But most people’s jobs don’t involve travelling the world to play a very selfish sport in front of thousands of people, sometimes with — or even against — your partner.”

Charlie Eccleshare

It was a summer of love in tennis in 2024. (Getty Images; design: Meech Robinson)

“How did that chirpy teenager suddenly get to this middle-age existence, wife and kids and in-law dinners, wearing the status of millennial tennis wise man?

Where does life, his and ours, go?”

Matt Futterman

“Muchova has come from a place that no tennis player wants to go. After that surgery in February, on the area of the body tennis players most dread becoming damaged, Muchova worried she might not play the sport again.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“Something about the human backboard nature of her play, the hard (but not too hard), flat power of ball after ball after ball opposing off her racket. The beauty of her game, her economic and elegant movement, and the subtle scything of her forehand almost go unnoticed.

She is plenty steady, sure, but that doesn’t begin to describe her. Stealthy is more like it.”

Matt Futterman

“Sabalenka can be funny and bubbly off the court but has a temper to match her athletic gifts on it, and an obduracy that follows her out of the tramlines too. When the stress ramped up, she would get so hot she could barely breathe or function, let alone serve.

That is when it helps to have someone with a background in martial arts: a discipline in controlling your breathing and your emotions when you are facing someone beating the crap out of you.”

Matt Futterman

“Both are so quick that they look like they could be Olympic sprinters, and where Alcaraz lunges and bends like his limbs are putty, Sinner dives and twirls like a superhero escaping from a burning building.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“Forlan expected to spend much of his retirement honing his golf game, but instead has found himself drawn back to tennis. Nothing else gives him the same satisfaction as the sport that, along with football, he excelled at in his youth.”

Diego Forlan’s professional debut was one of the less likely stories of the year. (Kevin Santamaria / Tenis al Maximo)

“When the WTA go to Saudi, I would say they should adopt a political prisoner’s case and take it on and say ‘OK, we’re going, but we are also advocating for them. And Manahel al-Otaibi (the jailed fitness instructor) is the closest case you could have to sports. Say, ‘We are happy to be in Saudi. We’re happy that Saudi women are to now play tennis. But what about Manahel al-Otaibi?’”

Charlie Eccleshare

“Jannik Sinner is trying to speak, but his own name is resounding too loudly across the Inalpi Arena in Turin. Lit up on billboards, written on placards, chanted across the aisles. Sinner, the first Italian to achieve the men’s world No. 1 ranking, isn’t just the featured attraction of the ATP Tour Finals tournament in his home country: He is the tournament, on the court and off it.”

Matt Futterman

“Instead of letting her serve become a complete albatross, Errani has used her ground skills, tactical nous and the shock factor of a serve that regularly registers around 60mph (96.5kph) on the speed gun to reach the very top of tennis in singles and doubles.”

Charlie Eccleshare

“For two decades, whatever outrageous fortune controls tennis injuries kept slinging arrows at Rafael Nadal.

When the Spaniard finally raised his white flag last month, he admitted defeat to an opponent he had vanquished not just in his later years but for two decades, until he couldn’t win the battle any more.”

Matt Futterman

Rafael Nadal’s retirement was one of many that defined the year. (Julian Finney / Getty Images)

“Both Swiatek’s one-month suspension and the decision not to ban Jannik Sinner for his two positive tests for clostebol, an anabolic steroid, have been conducted according to ITIA protocol. Both cases have also revealed deep wells of mistrust and anger within tennis from fans and players alike, confused at players being allowed to play while under investigation. Everything has been done by the book. The book appears in need of a rewrite.”

Matt Futterman

“I wasn’t alone,” she said. “It wasn’t something wrong with me.”

Matt Futterman

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s my boyfriend’s birthday. Like happy birthday. I love you.’ And then, boom!

“It was so normal for me that I didn’t think about it.”

Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman

(Top photo: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Wiggins has always been the quiet one in the Golden State Warriors mix of stars, content with chilling in the background while the big personalities and loud voices hoard all the attention. The stage of personality, with its burdens, isn’t worth mounting.

He would sit back and smile, shaking his head as Draymond Green talked his talk, laughing uncontrollably as Steph Curry danced his dance. And when the festivities were done, win or lose, Wiggins would scoop up his young daughters and head home to be with his family, like his father taught him to do.

But over the previous two seasons, Warriors coach Steve Kerr noticed a different kind of quiet taking hold within one of his most important players. Something more than his usual reservedness. Something deeper. As Mitchell Wiggins’ health deteriorated rapidly, his son withdrew. From the team, from the game, from everything.

“It was brutal because it was an ongoing thing for such a long time where his dad was suffering,” Kerr said. “To see someone you love, your father, suffering for such a long period of time — you can imagine how that would impact your daily existence.”

Wiggins took an extended leave of absence to be with his father two seasons ago and missed some time here and there last season as Mitchell went through various treatments. His numbers declined significantly, his defensive energy disappeared and the Warriors went right down with him.

Those who suffer in silence tend to sacrifice empathy. What exactly was wrong, how deep his hurt, was kept locked behind Wiggins’ penchant for privacy. Thus, he was a central figure of blame for the Warriors missing the playoffs and became the subject of the fan base’s trade wishes.

If only fans knew how much none of it mattered.

“Not caring about basketball as much,” Wiggins said. “You got your life to worry about. You’ve got certain things going on in your life that are your priority. Basketball is kind of in the shadows. You try to figure out a good balance.”

Mitchell Wiggins died in September at the age of 64, devastating a close-knit family. Mitchell and his wife, Marita Payne-Wiggins, were both stellar athletes in their younger days, and they helped their children navigate the cutthroat world of professional sports while not losing sight of the most important things in life.

Three months later, the fog has lifted enough for his soul to breathe. The hurt has settled. After wading through months on top of months of pending grief, bereavement has subsided. Life continues for Wiggins, even with the dad-sized hole in his heart.

Where Wiggins once felt lost and helpless while watching his father suffer through various treatments, he has managed to rediscover his spirit and find reconnection in the wake of his death.

It has been an up-and-down start to this season for the Warriors as they search for the help Curry needs to make another run in the Western Conference. One of the most encouraging signs for them to this point is the reappearance of Wiggins’ smile and the return to the souped-up role player who was so integral to the Warriors’ 2022 title.

After two years of missed games, uneven performances and trade rumors, Wiggins is showing signs of emerging from the fog. His father’s death in September, and the long health struggles that preceded it, shook him and his family to the bone. The mourning will never abate, but Wiggins looks like a man at peace with his surroundings.

“My mind is definitely in a better place,” he said.

It has been a long road to get here. One game before the All-Star break in 2023, Wiggins left the Warriors. He missed the final 25 games of the regular season for what the team called personal reasons. No more specifics were given at the time, and he returned for the playoffs, where the Warriors were bounced in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Wiggins was a more regular presence last season, playing in 71 games. But for a large portion of the season, he wasn’t really there. He averaged just 13.2 points per game, almost four points lower than his previous career low, as a rookie with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2014-15. He shot 35.8 percent from 3-point range, took only 2.7 free throws per game and floated on defense to the point that Kerr chose to take Wiggins out of the starting lineup for the first time in his career. The Warriors knew Wiggins was carrying a heavy burden while his father was in and out of the hospital.

This season, his numbers are back where they belong — 17.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 42.6 percent from 3-point range, all numbers at or better than his lone All-Star season in 2021-22. There are still uneven nights, like a 1-for-7 shooting performance from 3 in a loss Monday to the Indiana Pacers. But there are also real glimpses of the difference-maker Wiggins can be, including in a game last weekend against his former team.

As the Warriors started to pull away from the Timberwolves in the fourth quarter on Saturday, burly forward Julius Randle grabbed the ball and took Wiggins to the paint. If this was last season, Wiggins might have given in as Randle backed him down. He might not have been able to summon the strength and the give-a-damn to bow his back, absorb the first hit and respond with force.

Wiggins was giving up a few inches and more than 50 pounds, but he clenched his jaw and got into the fight. He took the first collision, and then a second as Randle backed him down and elevated for a turnaround jumper. Wiggins held his ground, kept his base strong and went right up with Randle, shoving the shot right down the Wolves forward’s throat to preserve a seven-point lead with three minutes to play.

The defensive stand set up a Curry 3, and then another to balloon the lead to double digits. Then came the hammer, an alley-oop dunk from Wiggins and a finger-roll layup in the last two minutes to ice the victory against his former team.

“Just really grinding and just getting back to myself and being with my family and friends,” he said earlier this month. “Just remembering that I’ve been doing this for a long time at a high level. This is what I can do. At the end of the day, just going out there, defending, playing two-way basketball.”

Just like dad back in the day.

Mitchell Wiggins during his time with the Rockets in the 1980s. (Bill Baptist / NBAE via Getty Images; Tim de Frisco / Allsport via Getty Images)

Mitchell Wiggins was a dawg on the court. He was an All-American at Florida State and a first-round draft choice of the Indiana Pacers in 1983. But he made a name for himself as a defensive specialist and rugged, rebounding guard for the great Houston Rockets teams of the mid-1980s.

“He was a warrior,” said Timberwolves television analyst Jim Petersen, who played with Mitchell on those Rockets teams. “He was so competitive. He was an amazing offensive rebounder for a guard, and that tells you something about his toughness. And then also he was a lockdown defender as well. He was our defensive stopper.”

While at Florida State, Mitchell met his future wife, Marita Payne, a sprinter who went on to win two silver medals for Canada in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. They were star athletes, but family was at the center of everything. Andrew has two older brothers and three younger sisters, and the children learned about love, connection and trust by watching their parents.

When Andrew was traded to the Timberwolves before his rookie season in a deal that sent Kevin Love to Cleveland to team up with LeBron James, Mitchell, Marita and their three daughters moved from Toronto to Minnesota to be closer to him. Wiggins’ sisters were fixtures at Target Center during his time there, and the importance of family was a constant theme of his six seasons with the organization.

“You can see the tight-knit group that they were. I mean, it’s pretty evident that family is the most important thing to Andrew,” Petersen said. “And that’s the thing. Your heart was breaking for Andrew when you knew Mitchell was going through his health problems because it was affecting Andrew so much on the court. You could see how connected they are as a group.”

The bond between father and son was no joke. After Wiggins was the second-best player during the Warriors’ run to the championship in 2022, Mitchell Wiggins beamed, but maybe not for the reason you would expect.

The basketball was great, of course. For the first seven seasons of his career, Wiggins had been assailed as a disappointment, a No. 1 overall pick with all the physical talent in the world but without the motor to make a difference. He was a worthy wingman to Curry’s brilliance. Mitchell reveled in the redemption, but he couldn’t stop talking about the father Andrew was to his two daughters, about the brother he was to his siblings, about the son he was to him and Marita.

“Everybody realized the talent he had early on, the athletic talent,” Mitchell told The Athletic in the champagne-soaked postgame celebration. “But the biggest thing that me and his mom are proud of is the man and the son that he became. He’s a father that adores his kids, like I adore my kids. When I see him with his girls, his eyes light up. As a father, that’s when I’m most proud.”

Mitchell Wiggins was, is, a monument in the mind of his All-Star son. Behind the scenes, in private moments, Wiggins struggled to grapple with the reality of life without his father. Trauma tends to arrive suddenly, coming out of nowhere to alter lives. But Wiggins was stalked by it for years, haunted by its inevitability.

Even as Wiggins kept his father’s condition private, the Warriors were well aware of the heartache he endured. They never questioned his need to be away from the team. They never doubted his commitment to the organization.

“Everybody loves Wiggs because of who he is, what kind of human being he is, what kind of father and husband he is,” Kerr said. “And we know the pain that he’s been through the last couple of years. You could see it in his play, but just in his demeanor.”

His father was always there for him, so Andrew did not hesitate to leave basketball behind when Mitchell was in need. There was no debate, no pull back to the game and only steadfast support from the Warriors organization. However long it took, whatever he had to do, they were behind him all the way.

“I wouldn’t say it’s all a blur now, but it was just something that’s going on and you’re literally just taking it day by day,” Wiggins said about taking care of his father. “That’s how it was for me. You’re not thinking big picture. You’re not planning for the future. You’re not thinking about the past. You’re literally taking it day by day.”

Kerr, former GM Bob Myers and all of Wiggins’ teammates closed ranks around him, refusing to let anything leak as the public clamored for more information. It only reinforced Wiggins’ belief in what he has with the Warriors.

“This is a first-class organization,” he said. “I don’t think it gets any better than this, to be honest. This is top notch.”

One of the Wiggins family’s greatest resources throughout their patriarch’s long battle was Dr. Robby Sikka, who befriended Andrew during his time as Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations and player wellness under former lead executive Gersson Rosas. Sikka oversaw all aspects of player health in the position and led the team’s response to COVID-19 in 2020.

So when his father grew ill, Wiggins reached out to Sikka for help in navigating the byzantine health care system. Sikka was a constant presence, answering questions, reaching out to health care professionals and serving as a guiding light through the darkness.

“I was going through a lot, but Robby was always there for me,” Wiggins said. “I trust him. He’s like a brother. He’s part of the family now.”

Sikka also helped Karl-Anthony Towns when his mother fell ill with COVID and eventually died and has grown close with Anthony Edwards ever since the front office Sikka was a part of drafted him No. 1 overall in 2020.

All three players have lost a parent in their young lives (Edwards lost his mother to cancer in 2015 when he was 14). And now all three are investing in an app that Sikka is developing dedicated to giving people access to in-depth medical information and care. The Smart Health app will launch early in 2025 and is designed to help provide average people access to the same kind of expert medical guidance that professional athletes receive. It provides secure storage for medical records to expedite what can be a cumbersome process of sharing personal health data with new doctors. It uses artificial intelligence to answer health questions and it also tracks nutrition, sleep and everything else that goes into maintaining good health.

“What Robby is doing is giving everyone the opportunity to truly have full access to their medical records, so that they don’t always need to make an appointment to answer a question for themselves,” said Towns, who played with Wiggins for five and a half seasons in Minnesota. “I told Robby that as long as we can save lives, that’s all that I’m here for. I think that this opportunity truly has an opportunity to save not just one, but millions of lives.”

For Wiggins, the motivation was simple. Sikka was a crucial part of his family’s journey with Mitchell, giving him a knowledgeable sounding board in the toughest of times. He does not believe that winning Rookie of the Year should be a prerequisite for having access to that type of assistance when a loved one is sick.

“It helps cut out the hassle and gets you straight to the point,” Wiggins said. “It’s always more important and you’re more attached when it’s personal and when you’ve been through something.”

Wiggins smiled as he talked about paying it forward. And he smiled at the gift that is coming his family’s way. His fiancée, Mychal, is pregnant with the couple’s third child. This one is a boy.

“First boy in the family,” he said. “We’re all very excited. We’re all looking forward to it. My daughters are very happy. They talk about it every day. It’s going to be great.”

The Warriors’ plane ride home from Minnesota was joyous, following their much-needed win on the Timberwolves court. But Kerr found a moment even better than Saturday’s rebound victory. It warmed his heart in a way that reminded him of a significance greater than basketball. The real wins following debilitating losses.

He saw Wiggins with his daughters as they roamed the charter plane. He saw Mychal and felt the swell of warmth. He saw Wiggins’ trademark grin, the one that only surfaces from a visceral happiness. It doesn’t come easy. The rare display of Wigg’s widest smile is always a moment in that locker room, and they cherish it as such.

More than perhaps anyone in the Golden State franchise, Kerr knows what such a moment means to Wiggins and what it took to recapture this serenity.

“Just seeing those little girls on the plane,” Kerr said. “They’re just beautiful girls. And Wiggs has that million-megawatt smile. It’s so funny because he’s so quiet. But you can see the gleam in his eyes and in his smile. He loves life, and he loves his family. He’s a very simple person in that regard. He doesn’t need a whole lot. He’s not in this for the fame or the glory. No, he loves to play basketball, he loves his family and he enjoys his existence.”

His father died much too soon. But he didn’t leave his son unprepared. Wiggins, who turns 30 in February, has the blueprint for his own family. Mitchell showed him what it means to be a father from the moment Andrew arrived.

The circle of life produces beauty with its hardships. A beauty exists in this transition for Wiggins. The hurt he feels is evidence of a worthy father. The love he feels for his family is evident of a tradition of passing down.

And now he’ll have a son. Kerr called it karma, Wiggins getting the chance to recreate the wonderful relationship he had with his father.

“I’ve always been really close with my family. That’s just how we grew up. I want that for my kids,” Wiggins said, repeating himself for emphasis. “I want that for my kids.”

This will be the first Christmas without Mitchell. Andrew will be on national television as his Warriors play the Lakers. The spotlight following Curry and LeBron James is bright and sure to shine on Wiggins.

He will assuredly shy away from it as much as humanly possible. But when it does find him, it will shine on a man who again knows peace. A father who has picked up the baton of his patriarch. A son who lost a dad who will never leave.

“I think about my dad every day,” Wiggins said. “Twenty-four seven.”

The Warriors are 15-13 this season, in eighth place in the West and still very much trying to find their way to competitiveness. Wiggins finding his way back to them is a good place to start.

“It’s wonderful to see him at peace,” Kerr said. “It’s obviously a terrible outcome to all of this with his father passing away. I think just peace of mind, expecting a boy here in a couple of months and two beautiful little girls, a great family. He’s happy. And we were all thrilled to see that because of what a wonderful person he is.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Nathaniel S. Butler, Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images; Kavin Mistry / Getty Images)