Lakers’ reported interest in young sharpshooter will rouse fans
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers have not gotten off to the kind of start that the team was hoping for this season. After defeating the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, the Lakers moved to 3-10 — good enough for the second-worst record in the entire league.
While there are reinforcements coming on the way for Los Angeles, the team should still look to improve in any way it can moving forward. A Russell Westbrook trade seems to be off the table for now and there isn’t much else the Lakers can do in the trade market. Thus, the Lakers may be limited to bringing in free agents.
Los Angeles has shown interest in various free agents that are still available. The team recently hosted both Tony Snell and Joe Wieskamp for workouts, although Marc Stein reports that the Lakers will likely wait and see what they have when the team is fully healthy before committing to bringing anyone in.
While it is hard to fault the team for that approach, Lakers fans should be roused by the idea of Joe Wieskamp donning the purple and gold. He is far from a household name and his NBA stats leave a lot to be desired. That being said, like with Matt Ryan, there is a lot of potential there with Wieskamp.
Joe Wieskamp is the kind of young sharpshooter the Lakers need to sign.
Joe Wieskamp may not seem like a sharpshooter if you are looking at his Basketball Reference page. In 29 games played for the San Antonio Spurs last season, he shot 32.6% from beyond the arc in 43 total attempts.
That is a minuscule sample size and it would be unfair to judge the former Iowa wing on those numbers. Instead, it is far more reliable to look at his numbers from college at Iowa, there his three-point shooting was on full display.
Wieskamp was a career 41.2% three-point shooter at the collegiate level and in his last season with Iowa, he shot 46.2% from three on 5.1 attempts per game. Obviously, college basketball and the NBA are far different in terms of the level of competition but he showed that he can knock down shots at a high clip.
In the G League, Wieskamp shot just under 37% from three in 7.8 attempts per game. He obviously would not be taking nearly as many threes in Los Angeles but with a good percentage in that number of shots, Wieskamp has proven that he is a three-point shooter that has to be respected.
With absolutely no wing depth and the likes of Juan Toscano-Anderson being absolutely terrible thus far this season, it would benefit the Lakers to bring in a wing like Wieskamp that can at least stand in the corner, hit threes and play high-effort defense.
There is no guarantee that it is going to happen but Lakers fans should be thrilled if the team does indeed bring Wieskamp in this season.