A basketball fans outlook

Sunday, Monday, Wednesday & Friday

Late bloomer

Recently I discovered on the internet there are flowers and plants that are late bloomers. They blossom in late spring and in some instances into the summer and fall. I guess we could title Keaton Wagler a late bloomer based on his ascendency to the 2026 NBA draft. He was a relatively unknown prospect and I’m unsure why, allow this explanation. Wagler’s high school teammate was well scouted, Etan Taylor is now enrolled at Link Academy in Branson Missouri. Last season Taylor and Wagler were teammates at Shawnee Mission Northwest HS in Shawnee Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City (MO).

As you are aware by now, despite the fact he received offers from several mid-major schools Wagler decided in favor of Illinois. The 6-foot 6 inch point guards play bloomed in his freshman year aiding Illinois to play deep into the recent NCAA tournament. This past Monday it became official, Wagler through his agent announced he intended to declare for the NBA draft. Check this out, nbadraft.net places Wagler number 6 while nbadraftroom.com has Wagler at 7. Finally tankathon.com has him at 6. There is no guarantee on Wagler’s NBA potential however It would appear to be decent based on this information, to place his name in the pool for the draft makes sense.  

Oversold the product

What is the cut-off point in selling a product, depends on the situation I would suppose. Is it possible the athletic department at North Carolina might be guilty of this offense i.e., overselling. As most of you are aware Hubert Davis was terminated and they quickly moved to replace him. Rather than hire a coach with a Carolina pedigree the athletic department hired Mike Malone former coach of the NBA Nuggets. Malone has plenty of experience as an assistant at several stops in addition he was the head coach when they won the 2023 NBA championship. After the praise mentioned what about the oversell question I raised at the beginning of this exercise. An X post might be giving Malone more credit than due him.

The post detailed how Malone “developed talent” which is a little misleading, allow an explanation. He was a Cavs assistant from 2005 to 2010, LeBron James was in his third season. There is no doubt he might have influenced LeBron but developed him is a Grand Canyon stretch. I could make the same statement regarding Chris Paul, he was in year six when Malone arrived as an assistant, he spent one season with the Hornets. For Steph Curry he’d been with the Warriors four years when Malone entered the picture, he was an assistant for two years with the Warriors. Finally we arrive at Denver and his impact on The Joker, Malone was hired in early June of the same year of the arrival of Nikola Jokic. I am unsure if Malone had any input in the Nuggets drafting Jokic however I am going to say….okay. As for the other athletes named, there are questions on my part how much he was responsible for developing their NBA talent.

Meanwhile….

Doc Rivers became Bucks head coach on January 26, 2024. What most believed at the time the hiring was quite odd, the team had a winning record (30-13). This past Sunday came word Rivers would be replaced as head coach, no firing, it was reported he might move to a front office position. Here’s what is documented, the Bucks finished Rivers half season with a 17-19 record. His first full season would see the team finish with a 48 win record, the recently completed season they were 32-50. The nearly three years Rivers served as head coach saw the Bucks with 97 wins and 103 losses. One issue which cannot be fully discussed is how injuries impacted the team. Giannis Antetokounmpo NBA All Pro spent parts of this recent season on the injury list but there was more. It’s being reported there was a disconnect between the coach and the team.

Take a look at the portal transfers and make your own judgement, for the most part I’m not impressed. The scoring and rebound numbers for the vast majority appear average or even slightly below that. Are they transferring due to lack of play? Coaches leave programs and sometimes recruited athletes will follow them, is that what has occurred in some instances. Is there a desire for the athlete to be a focal point of the team something that failed to occur at the school he’s departing. Finally maybe it just wasn’t a good fit, the athlete discovered after arriving he’d made the wrong choice in choosing the school he decided to attend.  

He’s 7-foot 6 inches tall, which indicates he is loftier than Victor Wembanyama, on the other hand they could be eye-balling one another. Who is this giant, first of all there is no guarantee he plays college basketball or makes it to the NBA although that’s his dream. His name is Jongkuch Mach or JK, he’s 17-years old and although he was born in Perth his parents immigrated to Australia from South Sudan. He is playing currently at the Basketball Centere of Excellence which prepares young basketball talent for success at the next level. Mach has received inquiries from a number of American colleges, we shall see how his future plays out and if he continues to grow his game. Similar to Wemby he is rail-thin and certainly needs to gain weight. The more interesting portion of this story, he is still growing upward in height.

You are ALWAYS entitled to your own opinion regarding a subject especially as it relates to sports. Some might believe I have a problem with those in the media who do so. That’s not the issue as I see it, at work and in social settings my friends and acquaintances go round and round with sports talk. The exchange of thoughts is what I truly appreciate, I’ve often changed my position by listening to an explanation by another. At this point I draw a line in the sand, in sports broadcast media they are providing us their opinion, there is no requirement for us to agree. Some of those in sports media appear to believe “there is no basis for you to disagree with the position I’ve taken.” On the other hand there is, expressing an opinion in front of a mic fails to provide anyone more knowledge than we all have when given enough facts.