7. Moritz Wagner- PF/C
There are several possible outcomes for how Moritz Wagner’s rookie season will go.
- He plays like a rookie and puts up modest production in a middling amount of minutes, showing flashes of what he has the potential to be, in a similar fashion to most rookies.
- His inevitable struggles on the defensive end of the floor and limited offensive usefulness make him all but irrelevant heading into the playoffs.
- He is the reason the Lakers become a truly great team.
Yes, you read that right. There is a chance that Moritz Wagner is the piece that takes this team from good to great.
As previously mentioned, the Lakers are in desperate need of a reliable center. It just so happens that the team drafted a center in the first round of the most recent NBA Draft. What a coincidence.
Here is what we know about Wagner. He will shoot and rim run extremely well and will not play defense extremely well– due to his lack of strength and experience, not effort or instincts. At his very worst he will be an effective spot-up shooter with a defense that is able to be hidden throughout the regular season but will be exposed come playoff time.
If this ends up being the case, which is probably the most likely scenario, then the team would probably employ a Center-By-Committee approach to their rotation, giving Wagner, Zubac, and McGee around 15 minutes a piece. This alone would place him behind those two players on this list, as he is the only totally unknown quantity of the three.
What places him above the aforementioned players is his possible upside. As we all know, the more shooting you can have in the modern NBA, the better– especially when you can get that shooting from big men. If by some chance Wagner can adapt to the speed of the NBA game fast enough that he can become the team’s starting center, this opens up new doors for the team.
This would allow the team to play 5-out on offense, providing the ideal amount of driving lanes for LeBron James and Brandon Ingram, while also maintaining the presence of a near 7-foot body who can rebound and defend most centers adequately.
No matter what he will probably not be able to defend the top tier centers in the league, such as Joel Embiid or Karl Anthony-Towns, but that is okay. On nights where he has a matchup of such caliber, the team will have to adjust. But those matchups are few and far between.
During summer league, Wagner showed surprisingly effective ability as a rim runner and an encouraging amount of effort on defense. If he can bring the team close to the same rim running ability as McGee and enough effort that he approximates the defensive ability of McGee despite his lack of body maturation and strength, which isn’t that hard to do given McGee’s own defensive woes, then it is not hard to imagine Wagner stealing the starting spot.
Barring an unforeseen leap from Zubac, the team will start a bad defensive center. Only Wagner has the potential to offset this liability with an extremely complimentary offensive skillset to the rest of the lineup. If all goes well and this possible outcome becomes a reality, the Lakers will possess one of the top offenses in the league.