Dajuan Wagner Sr. found himself in a can’t-lose situation with his five-star son’s college recruitment. It came down to two options, the Kentucky Wildcats and the Louisville Cardinals.
The former was led by Wagner’s former coach at Memphis, John Calipari, the man who helped lead the former Tiger superstar to generational wealth in the NBA. And the UK head coach had already signed Wagner’s stepson Kareem Watkins, along with his son’s former Camden High School teammate Lance Ware — two early chess moves on the Wildcats’ part. And then there’s the latter, led by Wagner’s “uncle” Kenny Payne, who had also hired his father, Milt Wagner, as the program’s director of player development.