Clippers Rookie Keaton Wagler Hits Stepback Game-Winner in NBA Debut

HONOLULU — The ball found the one guy on the floor who had no business being confident. Keaton Wagler was 3-of-15 on the night, 1-of-11 from three, and the Warriors had just taken the lead with under 30 seconds to play. So naturally, the 19-year-old rookie dribbled up the floor, got to his sweet spot in the mid-range, pulled a sweet little move originated by Penny Hardaway — Clipperholics’ words, and they’re not wrong — and buried a stepback jumper that put the Clippers ahead for good. Final: Clippers 104, Warriors 101. Wagler’s first NBA game, his first game-winner. “Ridiculous stuff for a 19-year-old,” as the Clippers beat writers put it.

It’s preseason. Everybody knows it’s preseason. But poise in the final seconds at 19 is a thing you either have or you don’t, and the Clippers just spent the fifth overall pick on a kid who appears to have it.

The shot that swung it

The game itself had been drifting toward a routine preseason opener all night. The Clippers took a 23-24 first quarter and then separated in the second, outscoring Golden State 32-19 behind Darius Garland and Rui Hachimura to build a lead as big as 13. The Warriors punched back after halftime — 30-22 in the third — and kept coming in the fourth, taking the lead with under 30 seconds remaining.

That’s when the ball ended up in Wagler’s hands. He didn’t rush it, didn’t look for a bailout pass, didn’t play like a kid who’d missed 12 of his 15 shots. He dribbled up, got to the mid-range, and created the separation for a stepback jumper — the kind of shot that takes a certain nerve to even attempt in your first professional game, let alone your first three seconds of crunch time. As Warriors Wire put it, Wagler “buried a jumper that swung the game back into the Clippers’ favor.” Hoops Wire’s version: “rookie Keaton Wagler hitting a stepback jumper to put them ahead in the final seconds.” Either way, the Clippers walked out of the Stan Sheriff Center with a 104-101 win and their rookie walked out with the ball, presumably.

An honest box score

Let’s be straight about the rest of the night, because it matters for what comes next. The full Sportradar line: 15 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, zero turnovers, plus-2 — in 30:05, the most minutes of any Clipper on the night. That’s the good part. The shooting: 3-of-15 from the field, 1-of-11 from three. He kept himself afloat by getting to the line and converting: 8-of-9 on free throws.

There’s a version of this story that treats the 3-of-15 as a footnote. It isn’t one. A rookie who can’t buy a bucket for 39 minutes and still wants the ball in the final 30 seconds is telling you something about himself — and a coaching staff that leaves a 3-of-15 rookie on the floor to take that shot is telling you something about how they see him. The turnovers matter here too: zero giveaways in 30 minutes for a 19-year-old primary-ish ballhandler on debut night. He was composed before he was clutch.

And here’s the thing — we’ve seen this exact movie from this exact player, just a few months ago.

The road here: Illinois, then Vegas

Wagler arrived in Champaign as an unknown recruit and left a year later as the fifth pick in the 2026 NBA Draft — what Yardbarker called a “meteoric rise” during a true freshman season in which he earned his way into a star role while leading Illinois to the Final Four. The Clippers took him right after AJ Dybantsa went first, Darryn Peterson second, Cameron Boozer third, and Caleb Wilson fourth. (For reference: seventh pick Darius Acuff Jr. went to the Kings.) That’s not developmental-project territory. That’s a franchise expecting something.

Summer league was the first test, and it followed the same rhythm as Sunday night. His Las Vegas debut against the Kings was a clunker: 7 points on 1-of-7 shooting in 27 minutes, and the Clippers lost his minutes by 23. Wagler, per SI’s Clippers insider Joey Linn, called it “super physical” and told everyone not to panic: “We’re gonna be fine. I’m gonna be fine.”

He was fine. The very next game, against Utah and head-to-head with second pick Darryn Peterson, Wagler went for 23 points on 6-of-16 shooting (4-of-7 from deep) with 4 assists and a plus-18 — Peterson had 23 of his own in a proper top-of-the-draft showdown. “All the nerves were out the way,” Wagler told reporters afterward, “I was just playing freely and shots were falling” (via The Champaign Room). Then came 26 points in a 128-120 overtime win over the Timberwolves, per RotoBaller. Sunday in Honolulu was the arc again at the next level: struggle, settle, strike.

Why the minutes are real

Here’s what separates this from a nice preseason moment: the runway. The Clippers traded Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors this summer and are retooling around a new regime — interim CEO John Gibson and interim president of basketball operations Trent Redden, per EssentiallySports. They carried 16 players into camp, waived Johni Broome and Jamarion Sharp, and signed 2022 first-rounder Blake Wesley to a camp deal. Second-year guard Cam Christie is on the rotation fringe with a non-guaranteed contract that fully guarantees Oct. 15. Nothing is settled on this roster, and everybody in camp knows it.

The wing rotation is where Wagler lives, and it’s suddenly thin in a way nobody planned. Max Strus — acquired from Cleveland this offseason — went down about five minutes into Sunday’s game with a non-contact right foot injury, hobbled straight to the locker room, and was ruled out for the rest of the night with no diagnosis or timetable announced. The context is brutal: a Jones fracture in Strus’s left foot limited him to 12 games last season. Brandon Ingram is already sidelined with a heel/Achilles issue. Gradey Dick was added to the wing rotation via trade, Jordan Miller earned a standard contract — but those are the other names, not a lock on Wagler’s path.

Against that backdrop, Tyronn Lue giving a 19-year-old rookie a team-high 30 minutes and letting him close the game is a statement. Coaches don’t hand 30:05 to teenagers on accident in game one. The rotations are open, the veteran wings are hurt, and the kid just made the biggest shot of the night. That’s how rotations get won — not in the film room, on the floor, in October, with the game on the line.

The other side: Curry and the Warriors

Golden State treated Sunday exactly like the veteran team it is. Steve Kerr used 18 players, and the headliners barely broke a sweat. Stephen Curry played 13 minutes: 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting with two threes, plus 2 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal. Charles Bassey was the standout at 12 points on 6-of-10 with 8 boards in 16 minutes. Off the bench, newcomers Brandon Williams and rookie Graham Ike had 11 each, and rookie Yaxel Lendeborg opened the game with a three-pointer before Malevy Leones chipped in 8 in the fourth during the comeback. Nobody in a Warriors uniform will remember this game in November — but their rookies got a look at what the league’s 2026 draft class is about, up close, in the final 30 seconds.

What’s next

The preseason rolls on tonight with five games: Hawks-Grizzlies, Pistons-Suns, 76ers-Knicks, Bucks-Timberwolves and Kings-Lakers, per the Sportradar schedule. The headliner is 76ers-Knicks — LeBron James’s first preseason game in a Sixers uniform, against the team Philadelphia opens the real season against on Oct. 20. Miami’s new-look roster will keep drawing eyes, and our full season preview has the contender landscape mapped.

As for the Clippers, the next data point on Wagler won’t take long to arrive — and it’ll be worth watching how many minutes come with it. If Tyronn Lue keeps going back to him in crunch time, that 30-minute debut stops looking like a preseason experiment and starts looking like a rotation decision. The kid missed plenty, then made the one that mattered. At 19, in the final seconds, in his first NBA game, that’s not nothing. That’s a start.

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