Kayden McDonald is making the kind of camp climb that gets noticed, and Will Anderson Jr. made that clear after speaking with the media. Anderson said he has been really pleased with McDonald, who has grown a lot over the couple of months and has gotten better every single practice.
That matters now because the conversation around McDonald is no longer about whether he belongs in the mix. It is about how much he will be used. Anderson said the team has told McDonald it needs him and that he is going to be playing a lot, which makes the praise more than a compliment and turns it into an expectation.
Anderson pointed to the work behind that rise. McDonald has been learning the system, taking care of his body and leaning on the team big time, all while getting his body in good shape. Those are the details that usually separate a player who flashes from one coaches start trusting, and they explain why the evaluation has moved so quickly during training camp.
There is still a bit of unfinished business in the way Anderson framed it. McDonald’s mindset, he said, is getting there. That leaves room for the most important part of his next step: not just being ready enough to play, but being steady enough to handle what comes with a larger role. The challenge is not whether he can improve. It is whether he can keep matching the responsibility that is now coming with the praise.
For McDonald, the next stretch of camp is about proving that the last couple of months were not a burst, but a baseline. Anderson’s comments suggest the team already sees him as part of the plan, and that makes every practice between now and the start of the season carry more weight than the last.
