With the No. 25 pick in this year’s NBA draft, the Los Angeles Lakers selected third-year big man Moe Wagner out of the University of Michigan, and the team is hoping he can be their next late-first round gem.
At the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League tournament in July, Wagner showed he has the all the tools to be the modern, floor-spacing center the Lakers are looking for, but just as fans were starting to enjoy his intense and energetic style of play, he suffered an injury to his left knee. He has been sidelined ever since and will miss all of the preseason with what the training staff is calling a knee contusion.