DJ Wagner's love for the game conquers those who 'have tried to make a name at his expense'

DJ Wagner‘s brand is bigger than basketball, just as it has been since grade school. The weight of becoming the first three-generation NBA talent has been on his shoulders since he first picked up a basketball, pressure to follow in the footsteps of Milt and Dajuan Wagner, his grandfather and father, respectively.

Nike hand-picked Wagner as the face of the next generation of hoopers, other high-profile companies investing their resources in the five-star guard’s future. All of that was out of Wagner’s control, under the basketball microscope for essentially a half-decade now, evaluators watching his every move at the high school, grassroots and collegiate levels from then through draft night.

He didn’t choose that, the basketball world chose him. So when his first real rut came in Lexington, the vultures were there waiting to nitpick his every flaw, namely the shooting and decision-making . His draft stock reflected that as the outside noise grew louder.

And to his credit, he’s responded.

“His whole life he has been chased. People have tried to make a name at his expense,” Calipari said of Wagner, a player he’s been recruiting essentially from the day he was born. “He knows how to deal with it, folks. If you are chasing your whole life and you come to Kentucky and now they are chasing you, you may not respond the same way.

“These guys have all been chased their whole careers. They were chased. So they know how to deal with it. They are just – the problem is they are 19 and the guy they are going against is 24, 23, that becomes a little bit of an issue.”

Wagner failed to break the double-digit scoring mark from Jan. 23 through Feb. 24, a month-long stretch that saw him shoot 19.6% from the field (9-46 FG) while missing 15 straight threes. That was through a full cycle of fighting through an ankle injury, shutting himself down temporarily, and working his way back to full strength on the floor. As the talk ramped up, he tuned it out and focused on getting himself where he needed to be.

Where he felt like DJ Wagner again.

Since then? Three straight games in double figures on 13-20 shooting (65.0% FG) and 9-14 from three (64.2% 3PT).

“Well, I told him the whole time, ‘Look, I believe in you and it’s going to take time. You took two and a half weeks off and didn’t touch a basketball.’ The thing that goes — his energy, his toughness, his defense, none of that went,” Calipari said. “It was, he just couldn’t make a shot. So now he’s like 50% or better from the three when he was zero for whatever.”

Wagner will be the first to admit it’s been a relief to see shots start to fall, especially the shots he’s used to hitting. But it’s never been about the highs or lows, but rather trusting what got him to this point as a basketball player. He’s confident in his abilities and his teammates and coaches helped reinforce that throughout his slump.

“Confidence is always the most important thing for a player. If you’re missing shots or making shots, it’s always important to stay confident no matter how many shots you’re missing,” Wagner said. “That’s something my coaches and teammates have been stressing to me a lot. It’s just about staying in the gym, that’s where you get your comfortability. Once you step on the court, it’s all about muscle memory. As long as you stay in the gym, that’s where you get comfortable and it translates to the game.”

As Calipari said, Wagner tried focusing on the other things when his shot wasn’t falling. If he wasn’t going to be scoring, he wanted to make sure he was impacting the game in other ways like defense, playmaking and energy. Those things can stick no matter how hot or cold you are on any given night.

“Once you lose that confidence, it’s like, what else are you going to rely on? It was hard, it’s always hard,” he added. “If you miss a shot, there’s always a thought in the back of your mind of, ‘Dang, now I have to make the next one.’ You just can’t worry about that. You just have to worry about the other things and not focus on missing or making shots. That doesn’t determine the game or how you play. …

“That’s a part of the game, it just comes with the game. So I just really try not to focus on that. Like if I miss a shot I don’t let it determine the rest of the game, I try to do all the smart things, the little things.”

Above all else, he doesn’t let the big-picture stuff outside the lines impact what happens inside of them. Family dynamic, being chased, NBA dreams, none of that matters when the ball is tipped and he has personal business to take care of.

This isn’t a job, he’s simply doing what he loves.

“I’ve never really looked at it as pressure. I’ve got a great family and great people around me that help me stay level-headed throughout the whole process, no matter what,” Wagner said. “They make sure I have fun no matter what, never really looking into chasing the name or play a certain name, just have fun and doing something I love to do. I still am.

“It’s never pressure or anything like that. This has always just been something I’ve loved to do. It’s going to continue to be that.”