Longtime former NBA journeyman shooting guard Mitchell Wiggins has passed away at the far-too-young age of 64, according to the National Basketball Retired Players Organization.
No cause of death was officially announced.
Best known these days as the father of one-time All-Star Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins, Mitchell Wiggins was a promising athlete in his own right as a player. Andrew Wiggins spent large parts of the Warriors’ 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons away from the team due to personal reasons. The Athletic’s Shams Charania revealed that Mitchell Wiggins had been tending to his ailing father during most of 2022-23, during which he only appeared for 37 contests.
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Mitchell Wiggins, a 6-foot-4 swingman out of Florida State, was selected by the Indiana Pacers with the No. 23 overall pick in the 1983 NBA Draft. He was promptly traded to Indiana’s Central Division nemeses the Chicago Bulls in exchange for point guard Sidney Lowe and a future 2nd round pick.
The elder Wiggins, sadly, never had a chance to suit up alongside Michael Jordan, but he did get to play next to another Hall of Famer out of the 1984 NBA Draft class when he was flipped to the Houston Rockets for Caldwell Jones. Wiggins was often relegated to a reserve role behind backcourt stars John Lucas II and Lewis Lloyd.
That young Houston squad, led by All-NBA center Hakeem Olajuwon and All-Star big Ralph Sampson, advanced all the way to the 1986 NBA Finals, where it fell to a legendary 67-15 Boston Celtics team spearheaded by Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish.
Drug issues and lower-leg injuries to Sampson would doom what many pundits had considered to be the successor to the Los Angeles Lakers for perennial Western Conference leader. Lucas would be waived multiple times by the Rockets due to his recurrent drug issues.
Wiggins and Lloyd tested positive for cocaine midway through the 1986-87 season and were banned for two-and-a-half years. That year, the Celtics would meet the Lakers in the Finals instead of the Rockets.
Wiggins was reinstated by the Rockets for 1989-90. Finally sober, he averaged a career-high 15.5 points a night.
“Today we mourn the passing of former Houston Rockets guard, Mitchell Wiggins,” Houston wrote in a Friday press release. “Our sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends.”
A free agent in 1990, Wiggins did not latch on with a team for that ensuing season, but linked up with Charles Barkley and the Philadelphia 76ers for 1991-92. From 1993-2003, Wiggins played for international clubs in Greece, France, the Philippines, and multiple U.S.-based minor league squads from 1993-2003.
Across his six pro seasons played, Wiggins averaged 10.0 points on 46 percent shooting from the field and 75.5 percent shooting from the charity stripe, 3.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.0 steals a night.
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