Keaton Wagler

That's my take on Rollins.

Player number three, Keaton Wagler.

All right, so this is kind of a fun one.

He's one of a number of rookies.

Now you see top left points per game.

Yaxel leading the way at 22.6. Acuff getting up every shot for the Sacramento Kings is at 21.5. And Caleb Wilson, after the Bulls' close loss to the Knicks the other night, at 20.8. And then shout-out to your boy, Keaton Wagler, there, rounding out the top four.

Rebounds per game.

Kambuza in the top spot at double digits.

He's playing with a bit of a back issue, so be aware of that if you do have him on your roster.

Off the bench, Keaton Wagler had 12 points with six rebounds, three assists on two of 11 shooting, much like Nikhil Brown.

If you can handle the inefficient scoring, I think Wagler is kind of a back-end stash, maybe hold player.

Brook Lopez is not.

They have such different play styles, but the comparison's very cool.

I'm committed to Keaton Wagler best in 2026 agenda.

So I may be biased.

Final part.

Even when he doesn't shoot it well, he stays aggressive.

All that stuff from Keaton Wagler is what you want to see.

You're also going to have really bad shooting games as rookie guards.

This is the NBA.

I liked seeing that.

Maybe some positive takeaways there.

Keaton Wagler maybe played his worst game, 2 of 11, still got to the free throw line, but he missed some good looks, some easy looks.

I still like some of the shots he took.

I don't know.

Is anybody else in the NBA right now missing three starters? Three? While also not having a top 25 player on the team? Because Keaton Wagler has not played like that so far.

Excuse me, Darius Garland.

I'm not expecting Keaton Wagler to be a top 25 player.

But Darius Garland has not played like one so far.

They don't have Brandon Ingram yet.

You can miss some passes.

Passes it to the man.

I'm going to say that so many times.

Now, Keaton Wagler is also probably going to lose a lot of games this year.

The Clippers are not a good team, and they're going to give up a lot of points, and I think there's also going to be a lot of ups and downs with Keaton Wagler.

I was a little bit lower on Wagler's rookie year production, given what I saw from him at Illinois, and definitely what I saw from him in summer league and preseason.

The three-point shot.

He has struggled more on twos than Darren Peterson, and he's also not really taking that many twos.

Four twos a night, kind of half of what Darren Peterson is taking, and he's shooting 20% on those twos as well.

I think he's had pretty good quarterback I honestly want to see more Keaton Wagler running the half-court offense, and we'll definitely get there over the course of the season.

He attacked when he had mismatches, which there were tons of them all over the floor.

Like, he gets Keaton Wagler on a switch, and it's like – you can get any bucket that you want on him.

With Jaden's bag and his mid-range game, that's an automatic bucket.

And I feel like you see this with him so often.

But this is why I think that Jaden needs to get these reps because when Ant comes back, teams are going to be putting their fourth, their fifth, their worst defender on the court on Jaden McDaniels.

And like you said, Jaden is going to take advantage of any mismatch.

So, like, if you think of the teams we've played so far, you get Jaden in a switch on, like you said, a Keaton Wagler, a Darius Garland.

Last game when he was on pods, the game four, it was Sam Merrill guarding Jada McDaniels.

Maybe Adrian Abaza too, what he's about to do in his debut.

You have Darren Peterson, you have Mikkel Brown, Kingston Flemings, Wagler.

I just don't think that De La Raya is going to get top three in Rookie of the Year and average 15 points to 5-7 as a Spurs game.

That is definitely wishful thinking.