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DJ Wagner has all the tools and guidance to get to the pro level. After all, his grandfather (Milt Wagner) and father (Dajuan Wagner), played in the NBA. Wagner could potentially be the first third-generation player in the near future. Ranked No. 4 on 247Sports and No. 1 back in 2020, Wagner will join Aaron Bradshaw in Kentucky and play for legendary coach John Calipari.
HoopsHype caught up with Wagner at the 2023 Nike Hoop Summit in Portland and talked about his journey, his goals at Kentucky, and the NBA players he loves to watch.
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DJ Wagner: No, not really. We just taking it step by step. They just guide me through every step of the process, so we didn’t really talk about that.
A lot of different advice or tips on the game. Just coming up when I was young, going through all the levels because they play on a different level with certain things, expectations and stuff like this. So they give me a lot of different types of reasoning, different tips of the game. The main thing they said was really just have fun.
DJW: Nothing specifically…if anything, just taking care of my body, stuff like that to prevent injuries. So that’s one thing, but just play ball, just hoop.
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DJW: It was very fun. He helped me with a lot. Coming in as a young freshman, he taught me a lot about the game and helped me develop and mature as a player.
DJW: Oh yeah, most definitely. That’s my guy right there. You know, we really cool. That’s like family. He definitely hit me up a couple of different times. Given me advice on the game and stuff like that coming up in high school, so he definitely gave me advice.
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DJW: For me, really just to go and win the national championship. Just win, take it game by game. Be as successful as we can and just try to develop to the best that I can be.
DJW: Just really to push me to the limit. Push me to be the best player that I can be. Just try and help me develop as much as I can. Like I said, just push us all to that national championship and hopefully win that in the end.
DJW: My dad really showed me different moves and stuff like that just from training me and stuff.
I like to take different things from different type of players. Some players I can name right now, Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry. Just different things [from them] during the game, picking different parts of their individual games.
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DJW: Just like the players I named. They all killers. They all got that killer mentality. Every time they step on the court, they try to play as hard as they can. I just love to compete. Anytime I step on the court, I’m just happy to compete, so I try to compete as much as I can.
