Los Angeles Lakers: Jesse Buss likes how Moritz Wagner will fit on team

Jesse Buss recently discussed how Moritz Wagner will help spread the floor for the Los Angeles Lakers next season.

With their first round pick this season, the Los Angeles Lakers selected stretch big man, Moritz Wagner. At Michigan, Wagner had a very nice career, with last year resulting in a trip to the Final Four and a Big 10 Championship.

Wagner fits the mold of big men in the NBA now, as he will be able to stretch the floor nicely for the Lakers from the five position. Last season, the Lakers used Brook Lopez in that role, as he has improved greatly as a shooter the past few seasons.

When the Lakers selected Wagner, it was clear that Lopez would not be coming back to the team. However, it was also not clear that LeBron James would be signed at the time. Recently, Jesse Buss discussed how Wagner will fit playing alongside James. Here’s what he had to say via Lakers.com.

"“Yea, because he’s our only guy that can play the five position that can stretch the floor the way he did in college. He didn’t shoot as well in Summer League, but that was a small sample size, of course. I think that’s a natural fit right there. Obviously, LeBron has had a tremendous amount of success having shooters around him in his career. It just gives us a lot of different options, with a lot of bigs who can do different things.”"

Over the course of his career, James has mostly been surrounding by shooters. By doing this, it has kept defenses honest on James, as they can’t just simply pack the paint when he drives. One of the criticisms for the Lakers this offseason was that they didn’t add enough shooting to surround James.

However, the Lakers are a better three-point shooting team than they were last year, as the addition of Wagner should help that. Since Wagner is a rookie, his court time might be limited a bit depending on how he handles coming into the NBA. Furthermore, the Lakers have been doing a very nice job of drafting players that are ready to play in the NBA right away out of college.

Since Wagner wasn’t a one-and-done player at Michigan, he might be able to follow in the footsteps of Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart from last season. Even though they didn’t know they would have James at the time when they drafted Wagner, he should be a great fit alongside him.