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Pro stats are more important than college stats. 2 attempts per game is a decent chunk, and 28.6% is particularly bad.
Maybe it's just a case of low/inconsistent minutes disrupting rhythm, but there's no way he's getting high regular minutes in New Orleans either, so that's not our concern.
Maybe he would be an NBA shooter, if given the time, but he's not nearly encouraging enough a prospect for us to help LA.
Wagner can shoot... I didn't say he was a shooter. He can get better... he's just finishing his rookie season. Brooke Lopez has finally become a respectable stretch big. Marc Gasol has become a respectable shooter. These guys have been in the league for a while before really developing their shot. Wagner is only a year in, and he already has the other facets of his game he just needs to become a better shooter, and I think he can.
I don't think Lopez or Gasol are reasonable comparisons, because while it's true that they didn't shoot at the beginning of their careers, that's exactly it: they just didn't shoot.
Wagner IS taking threes. Like I said, 2 a game, which is a decent amount, and he's just not hitting them very well. Gasol didn't take any for his first few years at all, and didn't take more than 20 threes in a season until he was 31. That was his first year really even trying to shoot, and he shot 38%. Similarly, Brook never shot more than 0.2 threes a game until three seasons ago. That was his first year really attempting threes at anything like a regular rate, and he shot 34.6%.
As soon as they started trying to take threes, they starting hitting them. Wagner is already taking them, he's already trying. He just shoots 28% instead, that's all.
Again: I'm not even saying Wagner is completely useless and will never become anything. I don't think he will ever be more than a backup big, but that's not the point. The point is, is he promising ENOUGH to make it worth helping LA acquire a third superstar? The answer is clearly, blatantly, no.
He only played in 40 games or so and averaged about 10 minutes a game. So, while he shot 2 per game, it was only 77 attempts. If you watched him in college, you know he can shoot. However, he does not create his own shot at all. His defense also is not great. I would not take him unless Griffin/Gentry thought he had the potential of developing. Given that he was not included in the original trade, that may not be the case.
Not trying to be sarcastic at all here, and I know my question will sound that way so just know I mean it completely seriously.
At what point do college stats stop mattering? Lonzo shot 41% from 3 in college, but I think everyone agrees that his college stats don't matter anymore: at the NBA level, he can't shoot. People knew that by the end of his rookie season. He took around 300 threes his first year.
So if 77 attempts isn't enough to say whether someone is good or not at the NBA level, but 300 is, where's the cutoff point? 150? 200?
I know the question sounds kind of nit-picky, so I get if the answer is just ''I don't know''. I'm not sure either.
He may end up being terrible in the pros because he will get limited minutes and not get into a rhytym. But to close the book on a player after 10 minutes a game when he plays less than half the games (with most coming at the end of the season when most of the starters were out injured), is very premature. His defense is probably what does him in though, not his shooting.
Coon updated his numbers.
https://twitter.com/LarryCoon/status...132554752?s=19
Lakers can get to a full max but it requires everyone gone including Kuzma and AD waives his bonus.
If you need a good laugh just go to http://www.lakersground.net/ and watch the laker fans attempt to try to smash together their roster and their general "winning" attitude. Its joyful indeed.
https://youtu.be/Dg1QvMImZPE
Here's a video with Ramona Shelburne on ESPN explaining just how incompetent Rob and the Lakers organization were in the AD negotiations.
Few notable things from it:
The Lakers didn't make it a priority during negotiations with Nola to ensure they had max cap space.
Only after all the details were agreed upon did the Lakers call the Pels back and ask to get a 3rd team involved to dump more players to open the cap space up. Basically when they realized they wouldn't have max cap.
The players all have to be traded to one team do they can't split them between multiple other teams. They'd have to find a team willing to take all of them and they have given away basically all of their assets already so that makes it even harder of an ask.
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