NBA Draft: Keaton Wagler’s Trainer Explains His Rapid Rise

After once hearing skepticism about Keaton Wagler’s potential, Victor Williams has since received calls from numerous college coaches apologizing for doubting him.

They also ask Williams whether he is currently training any players of Wagler’s caliber after coaching the Illinois prospect through his elite basketball academy program in Kansas City. Williams’ response: “Those guys don’t grow on trees. But if they do, I’ll let you know!”

Williams’ faith in Wagler was validated during the player’s freshman season at the University of Illinois. Wagler led the Fighting Illini to their first Final Four appearance since 2005 by averaging 17.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game while shooting 39.7% from deep. Wagler also excelled despite dealing with the game’s physicality while playing with a slight frame.

Williams wasn’t ready to make any bold predictions about Wagler’s NBA career. But Wagler is expected to become an NBA lottery pick in this year’s draft on June 24. Regardless of which team selects him, Williams projected that Wagler will carry over his scoring and playmaking abilities while adapting to the league’s physicality.

“He’s going to be about winning,” Williams told R.org. “He’s going to be about his connections with his teammates and coaches. The chips will then fall where they fall.”

Williams spoke extensively to R.org about training Wagler, his focus on improving his strength and midrange game leading into the NBA draft and why he knew Wagler would become a special player.

Editor’s note: The following one-on-one interview has been edited and condensed.

From Overlooked Prospect to Lottery Pick

What has the work been like with Keaton leading into the draft?

Williams: “I’ve been going back and forth. Right now, he’s in Minnesota with ProMondo [Sports]. They have a guy there who is working out with him. But from everything I’ve seen and heard, he’s doing a great job over there getting ready and preparing himself for the draft.”

What has Keaton been preparing for ahead of the draft?

Williams: “It’s about continuing to get stronger and putting some weight on him. He’s really focusing on adding to his shooting. He’s a really good shooter, but he still wants to add to the strengths of his game. He’s adding to his midrange game with floaters using both hands. He’s trying to get really comfortable in those areas.”

Why are those the areas Keaton is focusing on most leading into the draft?

Williams: “Usually, you get your next-level body before your sophomore year in college. He’s going into the NBA, so we have to figure out how to put some real, solid weight on him so he can survive in that league against grown men and their strength. That always has to be a focus. But I think that will be a focus every year of his career as he continues to add muscle.

“As far as his midrange game, with the size and athleticism in the league, he’ll have to be able to shoot some floaters over the top of defenders. He’s going to have to pull up from the extended free-throw line when that opportunity presents itself. I just think that will be good to add to his game. He can do it and is comfortable doing it. But working on that will only make him more potent as an elite offensive player.”

What is Keaton’s weight these days?

Williams: “I talked to him this week. He’s right around 192 [pounds].”

What was his weight during the season?

Williams: “He played the season right around 187 to 189 [pounds]. So we wanted him to maintain that weight and add a few more pounds, but nothing too heavy. Our target goal was around 190.”

Beyond his strength work, what diet has he followed to help with that?

Williams: “He’s eating a lot of protein. He’s eating in the morning and then throughout the day. He’s burning a lot of calories. He’s working out three or four times a day. So it’s about keeping his calories up and consuming a lot of protein.”

When you started training Keaton, what were the major turning points that explain how he reached this point?

Williams: “I worked with him when he was in sixth or seventh grade. He comes from a great foundation with his mom, dad, sisters, brothers and uncle. They were all basketball players. They all played at some level. So he was already a very smart, intelligent and hard-working kid once I started working with him. A lot of the credit goes to them. They really set a great foundation. We just added to what he already was. He was already a very cerebral and smart player who could make open shots. I just wanted to add some things and put him in some positions where he could continue to develop his game. What I did was an addition to what those guys already had planned for him.”

But you also reached out to college coaches to tell them that Keaton was special. What did you see then?

Williams: “The game comes down to being able to shoot the basketball and being a good decision-maker. I’ve always seen him as a really, really high-level shooter and a really high-level decision-maker. As he continued to grow and add size for his position, I saw an elite player. I knew what I was looking at. I was around him nearly every day. I have a great big-brother, little-brother relationship with him. So I knew his character, both as a person and as a basketball player. I’m always somebody who has trusted my eyes and my intuition. With all of the connections that I’ve had throughout the years, I wanted to utilize them to sing the praises of my guys.”

What has that big-brother, little-brother dynamic been like?

Williams: “We have kind of a weird dynamic. If you know me and you know him, we’re kind of opposites. I’m the loud one coming in and hyping everything up. Keaton is more chill and lets everything come to him (laughs). So from the outside looking in, people may think, ‘How did those guys get together?’ But it really works for both of us. We are two people who rely on each other. He helps me out a lot with calming me down. Sometimes, I have to rev him up. So it’s one of those good dynamics. We’re really, really close.”

To paint a picture, what examples best capture your dynamic with Keaton?

Williams: “There are times in games or practices when I coached him that I may have asked for intensity. There are times in games when I’m a little over the top, and he needs me to calm down a little bit and relax (laughs). We always worked together. We read each other well. I challenged him in a lot of ways. He allowed me to do that. He allowed me to be tough on him. He allowed me to push him. And it was vice versa.

The best thing about Keaton is his overall demeanor, his outlook on life and how he gives himself to people. He really wants people to be successful.”

How did you challenge each other?

Williams: “I challenge him to continue adding things to his game, learning new things and growing. At this stage of his career, he’s one of those guys who knows what he wants to be and what type of player he wants to be. So it’s about adding to that. If I see something that I want him to pay attention to, then I’ll mention it. For Keaton, that’s all you have to do. You just mention it, and then he takes it from there. His approach to everything is to be observant. He allows himself the time to observe everything and then put his own spin on it. I learned over the years of working with Keaton that he’s going to go through his own mental process when it comes to decisions and what he sees for himself. He utilizes me and other people whom he trusts for advice. Then he takes it from there.”

The Traits That Set Wagler Apart

You’ve talked before about entering your team against shoe-sponsored teams that featured strong competition during Keaton’s junior high school years and how he played well and helped your team win by double digits. What did he show you during that time?

Williams: “I’ll be honest with you. He didn’t show me anything. I already knew what he was. But I was proud that he showed everybody else. We knew who he was. I knew what kind of player he was. Now it was time for everybody else to see it. He’s such a cerebral player that sometimes you have to poke the bear a little bit and let him know that I need him to be more aggressive and explain why. To see him go at those types of guys and dominate was very rewarding for me. Those were always his best games.

“If you look at his career, in the blowout games where his team is beating somebody by 25 points, he might have 13 assists, nine rebounds and eight points. You think, ‘He needs to score more.’ But when he played against some of the top talent, he just did whatever he needed to do to win. If he needed to score more, he scored more. If he needed to pass more, he passed more. He’s a super competitive person. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand because he’s quiet. It doesn’t look like things bother him much. So sometimes, you can confuse that with him not being competitive. But he’s one of the most competitive people that I’ve ever been around.”

What are your favorite stories about his competitiveness?

Williams: “You could play penny pitching with him. You could golf with him. It could be the littlest thing. It doesn’t even have to be basketball. It can be the smallest thing. If the objective is to win, he’s competing as hard as he can. It bothers him if he loses. He has that natural competitiveness. The juices are running through him all the time. It’s really fun to be a part of it.”

When you reached out to college coaches to tell them that Keaton was a special player, what sparked Illinois’ interest and everyone else’s skepticism?

Williams: “With Illinois, Coach [Brad] Underwood and his son, Tyler, have a type of player that they’re looking for in terms of both character and game. I think Keaton fit that with his positional size and ability to make plays. The Underwoods knew what they were looking at. Coach told a story about a game in which Keaton had two or three points. But he looked at his son and said, ‘That’s our guy. He’s going to be really good.’ Coach Underwood has been doing this for a long time and knows how to evaluate talent. With other coaches, I don’t know if they thought he was fast or athletic enough or aggressive enough offensively.

“I’ll be honest with you. I never was sure why they doubted him. I’ve been to almost all of his high school games. Every time I saw him, I thought he was the best player on the floor, whether he had 37 points or seven points. He was always the best player. You could tell. He knows that I teach him from a critical standpoint, too. I’m ready to look for things to challenge him on and things like that. That’s one thing that I could never understand during the recruiting process. I could never tell him, ‘You need to do this more,’ or, ‘You need to do that more.’ He was always a high-level dude, and people missed on him.”

So you still get a lot of apology calls from coaches?

Williams: “Yeah, yeah!”

What do they say?

Williams: “They’ll say, ‘Man, you were really right about that kid. I should’ve listened to you! I’m sorry, man. That was a mistake.’ Now I talk to a lot of coaches, and they say, ‘You got any more Keaton Waglers coming up?’ (laughs). I tell them, ‘Those guys don’t grow on trees. But if they do, I’ll let you know’ (laughs). It went from, ‘I dropped the ball on that one,’ to that becoming the first question college coaches have when they call me. Their first question for me is whether I have any more Keaton Waglers (laughs). He’s definitely made a stamp on our program.”

What do you think Keaton did last season at Illinois to prove you right and show that the work he did with you translated to the college level?

Williams: “Keaton is one of those people who lives in the space of winning. I don’t think he really marvels at personal success. I think you’d have a hard time getting him to evaluate a season by talking about himself. He would probably just talk about the success of his team, reaching the Final Four and all of the things that he learned alongside his teammates.

“But for me, I was so surprised at how quickly he was able to do the things he did. I was comfortable saying that I saw his capabilities. But when you go to college, there are a lot of adjustments that have to be made, and many have nothing to do with basketball. It’s strength, conditioning and being able to handle the physicality of college practices and games, as well as scouting reports. The surprise for me was how he handled all of that so seamlessly. It surprised me how comfortable he was while handling everything. He was able to be consistent through all of that. I was just as surprised by that as anyone.”

Preparing Wagler for the NBA

When you worked with Keaton to prepare for the college level, what did you do to help build his strength, shooting and ball handling?

Williams: “I don’t know if we did a great job with the nutrition part of it. That’s something we had to learn. But when he got to college, Illinois had top-level facilities. Coach [Adam] Fletcher and other people were involved on the nutrition side. They really taught him how to take care of his body and how to eat the right things.

“But from a basketball perspective, I just tried to use my experience. I played at a high level at Oklahoma State. I’ve been teaching and training now for 20 years. What I tried to teach Keaton was how to catch and shoot, catch and pass, and be a decision-maker. I always told him that he had two or three seconds, and then he had to get rid of the ball or make the play. So it was always about catching and shooting, decision-making and putting him in a position to own those skills.

“But he has a lot of natural ability that has nothing to do with anything that anybody has taught him. He has a very natural feel for the game. That’s nothing you can teach. You can probably teach it in early childhood, but as players get older, it’s really hard to teach. He has it naturally.”

Did you work with him in the weight room, or was that more of a focus once he got to Illinois?

Williams: “He had some weightlifting work that he did with people around Kansas City. He worked out with a few guys, and he worked out at his high school. But this is true across the board for most high school kids: You really don’t learn how to lift correctly until you get to the next level. When you get to that next level, everything is catered to your body type and what works for you. He really learned that once he got to Illinois. But he had plenty of weightlifting coaches and advice during his high school years. I think he had been lifting, but I can say with certainty that he learned the most about his conditioning and strength when he got to Illinois.”

What are your expectations for the next stage of his career in the NBA?

Williams: “There aren’t any guarantees in the NBA. There aren’t any guarantees in life. But one thing I can guarantee you about Keaton is that he’s going to be the exact same person that he’s always been. He’s going to keep the main thing the main thing. He’s going to be about winning. He’s going to be about his connections with his teammates and coaches. The chips will then fall where they fall from that perspective. I expect him to be the same person that he’s always been.”

Even with all of that fluidity in the NBA and uncertainty over which team will select him, what impact do you think Keaton can make during his rookie season?

Williams: “When you’re dealing with his type of shooting and his type of IQ, there’s no ceiling that you can put on it. I think he can do just about anything that he puts his mind to. But I think the reality is that he’s going to have to adjust to everything that goes on in the NBA, with all the games, different personnel and the schedule. But he won’t have any problem with that. He’s as mature as any kid that I’ve ever met. He’s going to put himself in position to get the most out of whatever he has to experience and make it as positive as possible.”

You’ve also been quoted as saying that Keaton is the most self-confident person that you’ve ever been around. What examples capture Keaton’s maturity and confidence at such a young age?

Williams: “Keaton has a maturity and confidence in himself that have nothing to do with the outcome of anything. He puts his teammates, family and other people he loves before himself. He has this ability to live in the moment and allow the chips to fall where they may. A lot of kids grow up and try to get ahead of where their feet are. They try to put themselves in situations and almost become nervous because they get so caught up in the situation. He allows things to just happen and adjusts accordingly. He has this calmness about him, not only as a basketball player but in life in general. When you’re around him, you just feel it. He’s sure of himself. He’s a great leader. He’s not going to allow circumstances or people to put him in situations in which he’s uncomfortable. He’s one of those guys who will always keep the main thing the main thing.

“My biggest compliment to him is his ability to be selfless and have a positive impact on other people. That’s the thing a lot of people don’t know. They see a basketball player, but they don’t realize how good of a human being he is and how he deals with people. I think that’s something the world should know. He’s very much a people person. He loves to interact with people and make people happy. I think he has a special gift for playing the game. He’s going to utilize that platform to make a positive impact on other people.”