All About the Shoes
Simply one of the best players in the country.
The night before the Clippers picked him fifth, Keaton Wagler was thinking about his shoes.
He’d ordered a pair to go with his suit, and they hadn’t shown up yet. He wasn’t sure they would. So there he was in New York, a day from becoming the highest-drafted Illini in twenty years, and the thing on his mind was footwear. “I got the suit ready,” he said. “Hopefully, the shoes make it.”
It’s a cute story and tells you everything you need to know about Wagler.
A year ago, nobody was ordering Keaton Wagler anything. He showed up in Champaign ranked 261st in his recruiting class. Three stars. He didn’t play on a shoe-themed AAU team. He won a couple of Kansas state titles, but big programs didn’t look twice. All credit goes to Tyler Underwood, who saw him and knew he was the perfect fit for what Illinois needed. That evaluation is going to be the biggest one the younger Underwood will likely ever have in his career.
Over the summer, there was some buzz, but no one dreamed he’d become a top-five pick. A contributor on a good team? Yes. The catalyst to propel Illinois Basketball to its first Final Four in decades? No way.
Then December happened.
Brad Underwood and his staff handed the offense to Wagler, and he became one of the best players in the country. He dropped 46 at Purdue in January, a Big Ten freshman record. He carried Illinois to its first Final Four since 2005. He broke the school’s freshman scoring record by a mile with 663 points, the third-best scoring season anybody has ever had at Illinois. Second Team All-American. Big Ten Freshman of the Year. I’m looking forward to his jersey raising this upcoming season.
And on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Clippers took him at No. 5, ahead of three former five-star guards who’d been on every scout’s radar since they were sixteen.
It blows my mind. He’s the highest pick Illinois has produced since Deron Williams in 2005. One of only three Illini ever taken in the top ten, with Williams and Kendall Gill. Gill went fifth too, back in 1990. The number next to Wagler’s name a year ago was 261. The number next to it now is 5.
In pre-draft workouts, a story emerged. When Wagler worked out for the Clippers, he started cold. Missed a bunch of shots in front of the franchise sitting on a top-five pick. That’s the kind of moment that can wilt a nineteen-year-old. Wagler just kept playing. Once they put live competition in front of him, he hit everything and made every winning play in the gym. Their testing turned up an elite ability to stop on a dime and create space. They liked the game. They loved the kid.
“We were blown away,” Lawrence Frank said, “not just with his game, but with his character.”
That’s the Clippers’ president of basketball operations explaining why he passed on the five-stars. Not the jumper. The character. They wanted someone obsessed with winning, and they decided a kid from Kansas was the one.
I think about how easy it is to trust a number. We do it all the time. We rank people, seed them, and slot them where we think they belong, and then we mostly stop looking. The ranking turns into the truth, and the truth turns into the ceiling. Two hundred and sixty-one means role player, on a good day. It does not mean top-five pick. Everyone knew that.
Except a number is a guess. That’s all it ever was. A snapshot of what a teenager could do in one moment, dressed up as a verdict on what he’ll always be. Underwood and his staff looked past the snapshot. So did Frank, out in Los Angeles with the fifth pick and a roster he’s rebuilding around Kawhi Leonard’s last good years. Both of them saw a player the rankings had filed away and forgotten.
The better part of the story is that Wagler never seems to have believed the verdict on himself either. He didn’t arrive at Illinois playing like a 261. He arrived and played, and when the lights got bigger, so did he. The Clippers saw the same thing.
For this Illinois Basketball program, Wagler going fifth runs deeper than one good draft night, and it was a great one. The line coming out of Illinois is three first-rounders in three years. It’s a guard factory in Champaign now, which is the kind of thing you can sell to every recruit who falls asleep dreaming about the “Association.”
Keaton Wagler is just an incredible story. A year ago, he was a name almost nobody could place. Tuesday night, he walked across that stage as the fifth pick in the draft, in the shoes he was most worried about.
Be seeing you.
$112 Million Man
Extending the Illini in the NBA coverage, ESPN reported Monday night that Ayo Dosunmu will stay with the Minnesota Timberwolves after signing a five-year, $112 million contract.
Minnesota acquired Dosunmu at the trade deadline, and he became one of their best players alongside Anthony Edwards, lifting them to massive moments in the postseason.
Good for him.
Hello Stranger Logline
Does this logline make you want to read the actual screenplay?
A comic-shop owner is handed one perfect night with the love he talked himself out of a decade ago — then learns she's dying and has begged him to stay away, forcing a choice between the months they could still have and the clean goodbye she's chosen for them both.
Let me know.
I’m working on the pitch deck next.
Be Where Your Feet Are
Alan Stein, a leadership and basketball performance coach who’s worked with players like Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, did a TED talk several years ago on something I need to be better at―time and attention.
In the video, he explains how learning to be where your feet are can help you become more present, productive, and successful.
“Your habits are in fact a choice. You choose your habits and your habits are what dictate your happiness and your success.”
His beginning, about what he learned from watching a private workout by Kobe Bryant, is great.
I recognize when someone is present and focused. I admire it in other people. In practice, for myself, I’m terrible at it. Take 10 minutes to watch. I need to watch it about ten more times a day.
Happy Birthday to Me
Birthdays are supposed to be remembered and cherished. On my 16th birthday, I drove to the mall by myself. On my 21st birthday… no idea. Probably at some bar watching a band. On my 30th and 40th birthdays… I do not recall anything special or memorable. Birthdays simply have never been a big deal for me.
When I was growing up, my family would have a nice dinner and a cake, my grandma would come over, and I’d get a card and a present or two. It was always a pretty low-key affair. I don’t recall ever having a birthday party with a bunch of friends at the house.
This birthday coming up is not a milestone or a round number. I don’t feel the actual age I’m turning. I guess I feel younger, but I’m wise enough to know I’m most certainly not younger, nor am I getting any younger.
To celebrate, we will get expensive pizza and key lime pie. I’m looking forward to watching a movie on Netflix and enjoying the evening.
Happy birthday to me.
