That thirty-point game that Moritz “Der Gotterdammerung” Wagner dropped in the first month of the season continues to wreak havoc on my Wagner-related thought processes. Even though I know logically that he’s just a low-end role-player, that thirty-burger has tricked part of my mind into thinking that he’s a night-in, night-out scoring god who makes Bradley Beal look like Tony Snell.
“Nineteen points? That’s nothing,” says the part of my mind that views Wagner a legit All-Star candidate. “Don’t bother with a highlight video for that. Would anybody make a highlight video of LeBron scoring just nineteen points? No. No they would not.” After these thoughts, I have to punish that part of my mind by banging my head on my desk repeatedly. I’m not sure which neurons need correcting or in which sections of my brain those neurons reside, but that’s why I try to bang every side of my head on my desk. By this process, soon my mental conception of Wagner will be corrected. Hopefully I still remember who he is and what basketball is by the end of the process.
Or maybe my conception isn’t so wrong after all. Wagner is still averaging 20/10 per 36 minutes on 59% shooting. My violent self-correction methods might not be so necessary if Wagner truly is a superstar stud hidden on the ‘Zards bench.