Michigan Wolverines Basketball: What They're Saying About Franz Wagner
After Michigan Wolverines basketball and Juwan Howard landed Franz Wagner, here's a look around the Internet to see what's being written about Wagner.
Andrew Kahn, MLive.com: Franz Wagner could make an instant impact for Michigan basketball
This time of year is known for NBA players switching teams, but the Michigan basketball program benefited last weekend when Franz Wagner decided to leave German pro club Alba Berlin to join the Wolverines.
He should be able to make a significant contribution as a freshman in 2019-20.
The recruiting service 247sports lists Wagner as a four-star prospect and the 47th-best player in the incoming class. On talent alone, he could start for Michigan.
As a good outside shooter, he also fills a void on the roster. The Wolverines lost their two most prolific 3-point shooters from a season ago. Wagner will help there. He made 38 percent of his 3s for Alba Berlin last season. Those 73 attempts came from the international distance, which is what the NCAA will be adopting this year.
Wagner is listed at 6-foot-7 by recruiting sites and at 6-8 on eurobasket.com, but recently told a reporter he was 6-9. Regardless, Michigan listed him as a guard in its release announcing his signing. He played on the perimeter for Alba Berlin, and could play shooting guard or small forward for Michigan.
Head coach Juwan Howard could roll out a super big lineup that includes Wagner and the 6-foot-8 Brandon Johns Jr., or could use a true guard -- David DeJulius or Eli Brooks, for example -- in the backcourt with Simpson …
Michigan lost former signee Jalen Wilson when John Beilein left Michigan to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers. Wagner is three spots ahead of Wilson, a 6-foot-8 forward, in the 247sports rankings. Getting the 17-year-old to leave Germany for Ann Arbor was a major recruiting victory for the Michigan coaching staff.
Wagner is not the same player as his older brother, Moritz. Expecting the younger Wagner to follow in his brother's footsteps and lead the team to a Final Four en route to becoming a first-round NBA draft pick is unfair. Moritz did that as a junior.
Wagner, a 6-foot-9 sharpshooter and the younger brother of former U-M star Moritz Wagner, is considered a highly touted prospect, potentially a future first-round NBA draft pick. At 17 years old, Wagner more than held his own playing this past season in the Bundesliga, Germany's top professional league.
Alba Berlin, the team that developed both him and Moritz, desperately wanted to keep Wagner from following his brother's footsteps and leaving Germany to play collegiately in the United States …
“Oh, man," said assistant coach Saddi Washington, who was part of Wagner's recruitment from the beginning. "You pick whatever chapter you want it to be in your biography, it would definitely go down as one of the more interesting developments in a recruitment of a kid. I don’t think any of us will soon forget …”
Eventually, they found out that Wagner was en route, along with his parents and brother. At that moment, the staff made a collective decision: they were going to go all-in to try and salvage the visit.
"At that time, you have to either decide to bail and figure out what’s next for you personally," Washington said, "or hunker down and make sure that we spend time with the family and give Franz the full opportunity to see Michigan."
According to Washington, the original plan was to let the Wagner's spend the first night of the visit alone, giving them a chance to process everything as a family.
Instead, the three assistants decided it was important to "rally the troops," Washington said, and took the Wagner's to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House, located in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor. If anything else, they would have a great dinner.
Washington started the evening by addressing Beilein's departure. He told the Wagners they were considered family and said the staff was excited "to just be able to re-connect."
The audible worked. The dinner broke "some of the ice and tension" that was built up from earlier that day and gave Michigan momentum heading into the next day.
"It was kinda crazy, but I think we had a great dinner and that set the tone for the rest of the visit," Washington said. "It was a good night of good food and good laughter.
When it came down to it, Franz ultimately wanted the same thing Moritz did, according to German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost.
“That I can experience something new,” Wagner told Morgenpost, in an article that was translated to English via Google Translate, when asked why he chose Michigan over Alba Berlin. “That I get to (meet) new people and a new culture.”
Wagner, a 6-foot-8 wing, said he was in a “good situation” with Alba Berlin. He played in 57 games with the club — 35 in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), Germany’s top league, and 22 in the EuroCup — primarily as a perimeter player off the bench and averaged 4.6 points in 12.4 minutes to help his team to a runner-up finish in the BBL.
His contributions, which was highlighted by a 14-point performance in the BBL championship series against Bayern Munich last month, netted him the league’s best young player award.
Wagner said Alba Berlin has “everything you need in Europe as a younger player” and acknowledged he could’ve played a larger role for the club next season.
“But that's not it. Alba did not do anything wrong,” Wagner said. “I just feel more like (getting) this college experience than becoming a professional basketball player. College basketball is also quite professionally structured, but you do not just think about basketball all the time.”
Wagner said whichever route he took had its advantages. He won’t play nearly as many games in college — Michigan had 37 last season — as he would in Germany but questioned “whether 80 games or more are good for the body.”
Brendan Quinn, The Athletic: Franz Wagner to Michigan: A very strange trip
The previous night, moments before Franz Wagner and his parents boarded a flight from Berlin to Detroit, Beilein reached out to tell them he was leaving Michigan to accept a position as Cleveland Cavaliers head coach. The Wagners had a decision: Turn around and go home or get on the plane. They opted to board the flight. After all, Moe was meeting them in Ann Arbor to join in the recruiting trip to Michigan. Having spent the last year spinning in a different orbit as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, he was already there waiting for them. Plus, this was an official visit to Michigan. The university was flipping the bill.
“A very, very interesting situation,” Moe Wagner said in hindsight on Monday.
According to multiple current and former U-M staffers, Franz Wagner’s official visit was a bizarre moment testing the balance of self-preservation versus duty to the job. Everyone learned of Beilein’s exit that morning via Twitter and panicked text messages, and, naturally, needed to first consider their own futures. No one was sure if they still had a job. Yet, everyone also knew there was a plane heading to Detroit Metro Airport carrying a recruit that most programs would bend over backward for. What to do? …
“We were all sitting around, like, is this really happening?” said one former staffer, speaking after requesting anonymity. “We were trying to communicate with Moe what was going on, but the thing was, we didn’t know what was going on.”
“We got rocked,” a current staffer said, “and, truthfully, we were asking, are we even still having this visit? What’s the point?”
Prior to Beilein’s departure, the entire staff was under the impression that Franz was coming to Ann Arbor to commit that day. The visit was expected to be more of a celebration than a sales pitch. That feeling quickly changed …
“When it came to Franz getting here, we had two options, to either go forward as is or let the family basically have a mini-vacation,” the ex-staffer said.
They decided to stick with the original agenda for Wagner’s visit. He would take a campus tour. He would meet with the athletic department’s academic support staff. He would meet with strength and conditioning coach Jon Sanderson. What unfolded, though, was anything but an ordinary recruiting visit. Jay Shunnar, then a graduate assistant with the program, filled Beilein’s spot on the agenda items requiring the head coach to be involved. (Shunnar, in a dash of irony, ended up being the lone body from U-M to join Beilein’s staff in Cleveland.)
Everyone went about their business. Sort of.
“It was one of those situations where anytime the family went back to the hotel, people were on their phones, talking to players, talking to people about possible jobs,” the former staffer said.
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