DJ Wagner

Kentucky’s John Calipari is like family to No. 1 recruit DJ Wagner — but so is Louisville’s Kenny Payne. So now what?

It feels like we’ve seen this movie before. And so many sequels lately. Since 2015, if you’re a Kentucky fan beginning to get excited about the prospect of signing the No. 1-ranked high school recruit, brace yourself for an epic letdown. There was Skal Labissiere, who at least played a season for the Wildcats, but it wasn’t pretty. Then James Wiseman, a mortal lock to pick UK until Memphis hired his high school coach, Penny Hardaway. Then Cade Cunningham, who committed during a visit to Lexington but ultimately signed with Oklahoma State, which hired his brother, Cannen, as an assistant coach. Then there’s the ongoing saga of Shaedon Sharpe, a top recruit who actually made it to campus but might not stick around long enough to play for Kentucky.

So when we tell you that the story of DJ Wagner was supposed to be a tale about inevitability, maybe it still is. Just another kind of inevitability. The inevitability of disappointment, perhaps.

A year ago, when Milt Wagner first spoke to The Athletic about his grandson, DJ, the No. 1 prospect in the 2023 class, Milt’s college teammate and close friend Kenny Payne was still an assistant with the New York Knicks. At the time, Payne had been blown off by their alma mater, Louisville, as a serious head-coaching candidate. Meanwhile, just up the road at Kentucky, there was John Calipari, who is like family to the Wagners.

Calipari had hired Milt to his Memphis staff in 2000, helped him finally earn a college degree and then signed his son, Dajuan, the Naismith high school player of the year, in 2001. Calipari had advised — practically commanded, really — Dajuan to leave college after just one year, which turned out to be the only fortunate break of Wagner’s injury- and illness-marred professional career. Calipari also signed Lance Ware, DJ Wagner’s teammate at Camden (N.J.) High, where Milt and Dajuan also starred. Calipari had taken DJ’s step-brother, Kareem Watkins, as a walk-on. Few recruitments had ever seemed so inevitable as this.

Of course, DJ Wagner would eventually play for Calipari in Lexington.

“People who know Cal’s relationship with me and my son, they’ve been saying that for a long time,” Milt said all those months ago. He tried unsuccessfully to get the next part out without laughing. He insisted between chuckles, “But we don’t know where he’s going.”

The thing is, we did know. As recently as a month ago, DJ Wagner was headed to Kentucky. Period. Without a doubt. Listen to the way Milt talked about what Calipari means to their family:

“He had my son ready to go to the league after one year,” Milt said. “We were saying two years, but after that first year, Cal had him playing so well, on top of his game, and it’s because of how Cal pushed him. Because Cal ain’t gonna sugarcoat you, now. He ain’t gonna treat you like this All-American. He’s gonna make you earn everything, and I think that’s what separates these kids. My son had to take everything he got. Cal tells you that when you come in: I’m not promising you no points, no minutes, nothing. And if you’re any kind of player, you take that challenge. Some kids want you to make promises, but we don’t believe in that. If somebody gives you something, you’re not going to work hard to keep it. Cal made my son work for everything he got, and he probably didn’t like it at first. But by the end, these kids see: He pushes you to be great, and if you want to be great, you take what he’s giving you.”

Dajuan Wagner, who famously scored 100 points in a high school game and averaged 42.5 points as a senior at Camden, was Calipari’s first big star at Memphis. He broke the single-season school scoring record, averaged 21.2 points as a freshman and led the Tigers to an NIT championship. If he came back to school, Memphis was going to be loaded the next season. But Calipari made a fateful decision.

“Cal did his homework, got all his information from the NBA, found out Dajuan was going to go in the top 10 and he pretty much said, ‘Hey, man, you need to go,’” Milt remembers. “My son wanted to come back. People don’t understand, my son absolutely wanted to come back to school. He was just getting that bond with his brothers there, and we were gonna have a helluva team that next year. But Cal said, ‘Nah, you can’t come back, man. I’m tearing up your scholarship.’ That was a true story. And the thing about it: You look back, and if he hadn’t done that, things would’ve happened while he was still in college and he might not have been drafted highly. We’ll always respect Cal for that. Dajuan loves Cal for that.”

Dajuan Wagner was drafted sixth by the Cleveland Cavaliers and was almost immediately derailed by health problems. Injuries piled up; he was hospitalized with ulcerative colitis and eventually had half his colon removed. By 2006, he was out of the NBA. But at least he made about $8 million before his body betrayed him. Just imagine if Calipari had talked him into another year of college.

Wagner’s situation left a lasting impression on his coach, and Calipari leaned all the way into the one-and-done era from that point forward. Even as he took criticism from some fans for the approach, his standard advice for a projected first-round pick became: go get your money, son.

 

“None of that one-and-done stuff was planned. It just kind of happened that way, and then he realized, ‘Wow, man, if these kids have a chance to go, I gotta let them go, because what happened to Dajuan could happen to any of them,’” Milt said. “If he hadn’t done that for us, who knows what would’ve happened. Cal saw our situation, and it just flipped that switch for him about how to handle that in the future. His record speaks for itself now. He’s gotten all these top recruits and top classes because kids trust him to tell the truth. Even some guys who weren’t ready to be one-and-done, guys who needed an extra year, he’s told them that too. He tells the truth in that situation, in every situation, not just what you want to hear or what is going to benefit him.”

That sounds like the kind of coach you want to send your son or grandson — or both — to play for. Milt already has one grandson on Kentucky’s roster now.

Watkins “always wanted to go to Kentucky because of Dajuan’s relationship with Cal,” Milt says, “so he enrolled at Kentucky on his own, went out there and walked on and made the team.”

Then how, with so much working in Kentucky’s favor, is it not still inevitable that DJ will keep the family tradition going and join his old teammate and stepbrother there? Ah, yes, the twist. Last month, two days after Calipari’s Wildcats were stunned by 15-seed Saint Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Louisville hired Payne, who’d been both a former UK assistant and U of L player, to lead the Cardinals out of the wilderness. And just how close is Payne to Milt Wagner?

“A great guy, man. That’s my guy right there,” Milt said of Payne all those months ago. Payne had described the Wagners as “family.” He and Milt played together on Louisville’s 1986 national championship team. Another of their teammates and longtime friends is former No. 1 draft pick Pervis Ellison, who also happens to coach DJ Wagner’s grassroots team.

This is the point where Kentucky fans gasp. And sigh. Maybe even cry. Not again! Are No. 1 recruits now cursed for the Cats?

It’s hard not to wonder at this point. Labissiere (and maybe Sharpe) amounted to a wasted scholarship. Wiseman and Cunningham would’ve played at Kentucky if not for Memphis and Oklahoma State hiring the only human beings on the planet capable of swaying them. Payne to Louisville looks a lot like that for Wagner. One glimmer of hope: In early April at a USA Basketball junior national team training camp, DJ told On3.com that Louisville still hadn’t offered a scholarship or even really begun recruiting him yet. He said of Payne, “l don’t really have a super personal relationship with him.”

OK, but what if Payne hires his grandfather (or father or coach) to his staff at Louisville? That possibility has been heavily rumored and would serve Calipari a dose of his own medicine. Adding one more family connection could tilt the scales for the Cardinals. Bottom line: There is a very real sense that Payne is the only man who could turn DJ Wagner’s recruitment into a two-horse race. Milt has deflected any talk about how the hiring might affect his grandson’s college decision, but he did tell 247Sports: “It means everything” that Payne is leading the Cardinals. “He’s our brother. We went through wars together, and now he’s our coach here. We know what he brings to the table, and we are just happy he’s here and he’s our coach.”

What’s at stake here? There’s the player, a 6-foot-3 combo guard who averaged 19.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.2 steals and 3.1 assists last season to lead Camden to its first New Jersey state title since 2000, when his father was the star. Wagner also leads Nike’s EYBL circuit in scoring (23.8 points per game) after the first spring session of games.

“Shoots the piss out of it,” Camden coach Rick Brunson said. “Something Kentucky can use right now. He has the demeanor of CJ McCollum — just smooth, just a killer. Definitely the best player in the country in my opinion, but if you asked him, he couldn’t tell you where he’s ranked. He couldn’t give a damn about any of that. He just wants to hoop. He just wants to win. He goes out there every time like a kid who’s not ranked at all. When your family is like his, it can go either way. You can shy away from all the pressure of following that legacy or you can say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be better than both of y’all.’ And I think he chose the latter.”

“I honestly think he has a chance,” Milt Wagner said. “He’s one of those special kids. He does everything well, basically, but I think his maturity is what stands out to a lot of people. They’re blown away by how mature he is. He’s just one of those special talents that come along every once in a blue moon.”

Every program in the country would love to sign DJ Wagner, but it would appear only rivals Kentucky and Louisville really have a chance. Calipari is clearly taking the new threat seriously. He and his entire coaching staff traveled to watch Wagner play just three days after the Wildcats’ season-ending loss — and one day after Louisville introduced Payne as its coach. This week, Kentucky offered yet another of Wagner’s Camden High teammates, 7-footer Aaron Bradshaw. Calipari would surely take the whole high school roster if necessary.

The question now is whose connections to the Wagner family run deepest? And how much autonomy is DJ going to have in this decision?

“I don’t tell my kids where to go,” Milt said months ago. “I let them figure it out. Of course, I’d like them to follow in my footsteps, but sometimes what is best for me might not be best for them. I’m not one of them to say, ‘You gotta go here because I did.’ That’s not me. It has to be your decision. DJ is his own guy, and he’ll do what feels right for him.”