Pro Blue: Moe Wagner has a career performance

Feb 2, 2023 - 9:00 PM

The Wagner brothers paced the group this week, as Franz received an honor and Moe burst out of his shell. Take a look at how each of the former Michigan basketball players in the NBA performed this week.

Note: All stats are as of Jan. 31.

Moritz Wagner, Orlando Magic

Last week we mentioned how Wagner had been slumping and was coming off the bench. This week, he continued to come off the bench, but with vastly different results. After a decent showing in Miami (nine points, two rebounds, one assist), he exploded for 27 points against the Bulls on Saturday and 22 points against Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. Even more impressively, he was incredibly efficient in both games as he went 8-for-11 versus Chicago and 6-for-11 versus Philadelphia.

He also did this to Embiid:

Jordan Poole, Golden State Warriors

Poole crashed back down to Earth this week, by his standards. On Friday night against Toronto, he scored just nine points in 24 minutes on only eight shots, the first time he hasn’t scored in double-digits since November. It’s also the fewest shots he’s taken from the field since Jan. 15. On Monday, Poole was slightly more active, scoring 15 points on 12 shots in 31 minutes. Golden State has now won three in a row and four of its last five.

Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic

Franz had solid performances in two of the Magic’s three games this week. He scored 19 points and hauled in six rebounds in each matchup against Miami and Philadelphia. However, sandwiched in there was a clunker against Chicago, where he only scored seven points in 23 minutes.

On the bright side, Wagner was recently named to the player pool for the Rising Stars Challenge during All-Star Weekend:

Tim Hardaway Jr., Dallas Mavericks

Hardaway stuffed the stat sheet this week and impacted all three of the Mavericks’ games in ways outside of scoring. On Thursday in Phoenix, he scored only 11 points but collected nine rebounds and dished out three assists. On Saturday at Utah, he swiped two steals in a somewhat underwhelming performance. Lastly, on Monday, he scored just eight points against Detroit. THJ has certainly settled into his role as Dallas’s fourth scorer.

Caris LeVert, Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland crammed four games into this week with middling results. The Cavaliers went 2-2 in their four games. Similarly, LeVert had middling results, scoring between 12 and 14 points in three of the four contests and two points in the fourth. Outside of the two-point performance against Oklahoma City, he has continued to shoot the ball well from deep; against the Clippers, he canned four three-pointers.

Isaiah Livers, Detroit Pistons

Livers’ minutes increased gradually this week. He went from 23 on Thursday in Brooklyn to 25 against Houston and finally 29 minutes in Dallas (prior to being stuck in Texas due to an ice storm). He only took five shots in each game, but was able to drill two three-pointers against the Mavericks in a nine-point effort. The increased minutes are certainly a good thing, but he will likely need to start becoming a bit more aggressive in order for that trend to continue.

Moussa Diabate, Los Angeles Clippers

Diabate again played in all three of the Clippers’ games this week. On Thursday and Saturday against San Antonio and Atlanta, respectively, he only played during mop-up time and scored one bucket total. However, on Sunday in Cleveland, Diabate was given a whopping 30 minutes and scored 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting with five rebounds and one three-pointer. Those 13 points are a new career-high for Diabate, as are six consecutive NBA games played.

Caleb Houstan, Orlando Magic

All in the span of the last week, Houstan was sent down to Lakeland and called back up to Orlando. However, he has yet to see any game action with the NBA squad since Jan. 10.

Duncan Robinson, Miami Heat

Robinson remained out this week due to finger surgery.