Curious about your preference for Acuff, and would like to hear more of your thoughts on him. I feel like Acuff is a much stronger offensive engine than Wagler, but he duplicates Garland in too many ways. A really good, quickly available version of Acuff presents the same problems as Garland–tons of scoring, 3s, playmaking, but a liability on defense, effectiveness diminished by bigger and stronger top defensive guards. You really can’t play Acuff and Garland together, it doesn’t seem.

The possibility of getting Acuff makes Garland a trade asset, is one way to look at it.

You say “if available”–do you see one of the top 4 taking Acuff rather than one of the obvious choices. I guess MEM could ship out Ja and get some assets and picks for him, and then they might prefer Acuff over Boozer or Wilson. That would make things interesting. And Chicago is a bit of a wild card.

The difference between Sanders and Wagler is that Wagler was a true offensive engine and had gravity on the court. Defenses focused on him and he still got buckets. I think the lack of explosiveness issue had more to do with Stojakovic being on the court as well as their bigs like Mirkovic and Ivisic. Illinois had a particular system but Wagler was often the bail out option.

I’d take Acuff over Wagler if available, but I think Wagler is going to be a very good NBA player who might be able to show some real gravity on the court.

Kobe Sanders was stunningly productive and solid. He could have been buried in Ty’s system and preferences for years, if things had gone differently. He did all sorts of things well, and his shooting just kept getting better and better. The whole thing was a really fun aspect of the season, watching him and Jordan Miller make good use of their minutes and become viable and valuable rotation players. They’re both on the edge and could be kind of marginal, and they’re old enough that their upside is limited, but they are solid and can give the Clippers real depth.

Kobe Sanders’ success is instructive for who Wagler could be and how he might be productive–that’s where the eerie similarities come in. Wagler seems like a 25% improvement over Sanders across the board–he’s seems quicker, with a better handle and playmaking instincts, putting up more 3s. Sanders is a little bigger and stronger, but Wagler is just 19, and growing into his body and strength should make him more effective at what he’s already doing, way ahead of Sanders’ schedule. Having very big, even huge games in the Big Ten and the NCAA tournament is meaningful–scoring 46 points against Purdue, or 12 rebounds against Houston, beating them, and 25 points against Iowa–Kobe Sanders never got close to any of that.

Blake is an odd example too because there’s still CP3 stans to this day in our fanbase who act like Blake was a glorified Stromile Swift who single-handedly held Chris back from winning rings. People wanted him traded for Melo or Kevin Love every year in his prime. I don’t think he was appreciated enough by our fans, to be honest.