Keaton Wagler's breakout as a top freshman comes with tantalising perimeter scoring talent. How does his frame hinder him? PRO: Keaton Waglers star play in college has been majorly perimeter based. Incredibly dynamic shot maker from three, the tape tells more than the stats. While he’s 83rd percentile in attempts and 76th in percentage, his shot variety is high at 55 percent unassisted and 45 percent assisted. He’s got great range beyond the arc he’s shown plenty of deep shot making and plenty of movement shot volume. He’s a star from this area there’s not really much question to me if this will translate well there’s too high of a volume and variety of difficulty to support it. His self creative ability has been impressive, he’s got a variety of moves to create space, smart at attacking his defender and creating advantages. Against Purdue in his career high 46 point game he dominated by utilising switches on to bigger players to get clean looks on the perimeter. His range of moves, separation creation, ability to get to his spots to the mid range and pace of play show an intelligent players who can attack his opponents weaknesses. His length is definitely a seperator, long 7ft wingspan with plus positional size is a valuable component for modern day guards as we get bigger at every position. Wagler’s defence is a little more complicated but his activity level and how well he stays with his man is a good sign. 69th percentile DBPM, 75th percentile DRAPM and a 72nd percentile BLK% shows good utility of his length on the defensive end as a plus rim defender positionally. 99th percentile ORAPM is an elite number, Wagler’s low turnovers on offence with a 91st percentile CTOV. Plus offensive rebounding at 97th percentile ORB%. Plus impact on the possession game on the offensive end. CON: Biggest con to me is efficiency within the arc. 32nd percentile at the rim and 29 in the midrange. While Wagler actually hasn’t struggled that much to get to the rim in games like their final four matchup vs UCONN you can see him really struggle to get looks at the rim especially efficient looks. For someone with his length and positional height advantage you’d probably expect better finishing but other factors like weight have likely caused that to drop. Wagler also dosnt have the traditional playmaking skillset for him a point guard so he’s stuck in this combo, off ball, 2 guard role which I think is beneficial because he has shown great flashes and could be a plus playmaker in this role. Although he has a 39th percentile AST%, Wagler can make great reads as a playmaker in the PnR. He also does have enough off-ball juice to make this a reasonable expectation. He also lacks typical hard defensive playmaking, a shocking 12th percentile STL% is disappointing in combination with a 38th percentile DRB% and a low number of stocks per foul. This is why Wagler is more of a contentious defender, while he’s technically fine, overall impact stats show plus defences when he’s on the floor, defensive playmaking is very low which is also a theme within Illinois defense. This is something to monitor. NARRATIVE:WEIGHT_AND_ATHLETICISM: Issue: Wagler weighs in at 185 lbs, light for someone of his height. Not only that he had dunked no times this season and shows a lack of any athletic pop or burst. How does this change his projections? These really don’t bode well for Wagler. Both little contributing NBA players have had the combination of lack of athleticism and negative statistical indicators as Wagler but they’re are enough outliers that make Wagler an intriguing prospect to see if he can break out of this band. For example Kon Kneuppel having an insane rookie year. It’s really important to identify reasons to doubt a prospect and Wagler definitely has enough for someone to fade him entirely. PROJECTION: Some of the more recent Tyler Herro seasons come to mind as a good comparison, maybe not the all star season but there is potential for him to be in and around that area of player who’s star talent is as one of the more dynamic perimeter scorers in the league. Wagler improving his playmaking and paint efficiency and dynamics as a scorer could push him to a more CJ McCollum type impact, a comparison I find quite appealing.