We’re nearly two months removed from the start of Free Agency, and yet Christian Wood is still available. Any NBA team needs to pounce on that immediately, and here’s why.
Let’s get straight to the point. Christian Wood is too good of a basketball player to still be unsigned nearly two months after the start of free agency. Despite half-baked narratives about how ‘he’s not a winning player’ or how ‘he doesn’t play any defense,’ Wood is an immensely valuable player who would be a steal for any team to sign this late in the off-season. Simply put, an NBA team needs to sign Wood right now, and here’s why.
What the Numbers Say
You may have heard, but Wood can absolutely get buckets. According to thinkingbasketball.net, Wood spent last season in the 84th percentile in scoring volume (measured by points scored per 75 possessions) and 89th percentile in scoring efficiency (measured by True Shooting). That means that he’s not scoring those dreaded ‘empty calorie points.’ He’s doing his scoring efficiently, within the flow of the offense.
(Sidebar: In 2021-22, the year before his breakout campaign, Lauri Markkanen – a player not too different from Wood stylistically – ranked in the 63rd percentile in scoring volume and 63rd percentile in scoring efficiency).
You see, Wood isn’t like the classical post-centric bigs of yesteryear. He’s not aimlessly dribbling the air out of the ball on the low block – completely disrupting the team’s offensive rhythm and spacing in the process.
No, no. Wood is a modern big man – the kind whose range extends beyond the 3-point arc. Last season, Wood shot 39% on his non-garbage time 3-point attempts. That’s in the 77th percentile among bigs (per Cleaning the Glass). On top of that, 97.1% of his threes were assisted. So, he’s not going rogue and chucking up shots on his own volition. Like we said, he’s playing within the flow of the offense.
Now, his naysayers will counter by mentioning his plus-minus numbers, which aren’t that kind to him. For instance, the Dallas Mavericks point differential when he was on the court last season was -2.6 per 100 possessions (39th percentile). However, there are two reasons for that.
First, the Mavericks were experiencing bad opponent shooting luck when Wood was on the floor. When Wood was on the court last year, opponents were shooting three percentage points better on 3-pointers than when he was off of it. As a general rule, individual players have very little to do with how the other team shoots from three.
