Christian Wood expected to get "significant trade interest"

Sixers don't need Wood.

They need a starting facillitator or scorer, not another big.

Not sure how many ways this can be explained to you.

 

And Wall ain't that and neither is KPJ. We aren't a good Sixers partner on paper or in practice since we don't know if Tilman would make a blockbuster trade with Morey.

 

Higher than mid 20s and usually leading team instead of being third among starters on a team.

On empty stats, I see empty stats as those built on a high usage rate at an inefficient rate (i.e., better players on team will hurt his stats). Wood's defensive rebounding numbers are a little like this, but he scores efficiently even in a down year. His ppg may go down with better players, but his efficiency should go back up.

 

Fair, but he'd be first if we were counting non injured players. Also I disagree with the premise that "mercurial, good counting stats players" have "high usage rates". That seems to imply guards and wings while I just feel like Wood is a Vucevic type of player, albeit a better one.

Wood's FGA goes up and down but his efficiency is decreasing. Not to mention his FT% is abysmal, which is killing his efficiency, and it has gotten worse with each season along with his 3pt %.

Still need to pair Wood with that star creator...... Just seems like we are further away from fielding a good team than thinking about locking Wood down. I just don't think it's in our interest to start cashing in our assets in order to compete with a Wood level player.

 

Just to try to clarify the argument here about this value - when people say his value his highest now, that means trade value, not value as a player. His trade value is highest now, even if he happens to gradually improve throughout this year and next year. At next year's deadline teams would just wait and pay him in free agency. The risk is that we could lose him for nothing. If Wood ends up signing with another team after his contract runs out, in that scenario the rockets made a mistake, because they could have traded him during this season, and instead they get nothing. That is the hypothetical urgency to trade him without being prompted.

Some more devils advocate regarding Sengun/Wood, the issue isn't just whether or not they can coexist, because it's not binary. Again with a hypothetical, what if the net rating with Wood at center is +4, Sengun at center is +7, and with both of them is +2. Do we consider that working? Does this qualify as "figured it out"? Are we willing to pay Wood an enormous contract to stay here and then have him be the backup to Sengun if Sengun is outperforming him? Is that a useful allocation of the teams salary?

To be clear I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I'm not on team "we must trade Wood", however I do think the arguments on both sides make a whole lot of sense so I'm trying to clarify and elaborate on some of those arguments.

 

Christian Wood will be in high demand at the deadline because of his skill set, age, salary and availability. A lot of contenders or want to be contenders will look at him as a third option type player that has a salary amount that is easy to match in trade… if the Rockets are willing to take on a bad contract in exchange for CW, the return could be more than some think.

Honestly, at this point every non rookie on this team should be available for trade.

 

Totally agree. The thing with Wood is, tonight's game wasn't an outlier. Too often, he shoots 16+ shots, ends up totally ineffective from the FT line (50% or worse), and jacks up shot after shot doing iso ball without scoring. I like players with swagger, but Wood on a bad team like ours will always look at himself as a guy who deserves lots of touches. On a good team, he won't. He'll learn to integrate into an offense (something he hasn't needed to do with us) and be comfortable playing off alley-oops, dunks, 2-3 three attempts a night, and the occasional post pass but definitely not the focal point of the offense or someone who the team plays through. And he'll earn a 100M contract doing it.

 

--

17-11 is really good and those guys cost about 100m for 4 years.

DD

 

Agreed, and he can get those numbers without playing the way he's playing right now. On a better team, he'll get more open looks, have more mismatches, and more opportunities for alley oops. If he had played with Harden here, he would have regularly been getting 20+ with most of it coming on alley oops and put backs. But on our team he's a guy the team runs the offense through, and what we're seeing now is how inefficient that is...the two-big lineup makes it less efficient, but even when it's just Wood at the 5, our second unit is outplaying the first nightly, with the main difference being Sengun frankly.

 

But there is no reason we should lose him, and there is no reason we would be likely to acquire a better player with the added flexibility. There is a great chance that Wood on a $20m+ contract can be a trade piece for someone better than him.

Trade value is a slave to value at the end of the day. Right now, contenders would pony up to make him their 3rd option. Keep in mind this guy has played 180 games in 6 years, which is 2 seasons and change worth of games. That's on losing teams and with his contract always being insecure until now. There is legitimate reason to believe that by establishing his status in the league (this season likely to be his best ever) he will mature more than other players his age.

I have no idea why we are speculating about what the numbers could be. What we know is that Christian Wood and a 19 year old Turk who just joined the NBA and have played heavily together for what 10 games are probably nowhere near their ceiling in chemistry, wherever it is. Wood is likely to improve. Sengun is highly likely to improve. If a contender can see Wood as a 3rd option right now, he will be better than that in 2 years. How can we not have $20-$25m for that when our potential franchise players are on team-controlled contracts and we have plenty more draft capital coming up ALONG WITH the cap space that comes when Wall's contract expires?

I understand what you are saying, but it's premature. The chances of us losing Wood for nothing vs all the other possibilities is neither as high or urgent as it's made out to be imo. 1-2 years of experience, strength training and improvement around him will take him up a gear, and he's already being courted as a 3rd option on a title contender.

 

I don't see this as a real problem. The more assets you gather, you keep dropping the weakest one. If that's Tate, it's Tate. If it's Porter, it's Porter. You just keep accumulating assets. I can't understand a strategy where we have a guy whose only job it is is to seek these assets and we would just stop doing it because we are just content?

 

I'm not opposed to trading him, I just think we can wait till the last week of the deadline to see if there are truly desperate offers out there (no one is making their best offer right now, and Wood can easily maintain this performance). If we don't get a deal, try to extend him. If he says no, trade him on day 1 of summer. He's a tremendous asset, whoever gets him knows they are extending him, we will ha e to give a slight discount, but it will be on a better player with a higher value so the difference will likely be negligible.

Why people feel we should be out there seeking offers, causing trade rumors and ****ing with his focus is beyond me. How many times has this guy said he appreciates the stability the organization has offered him? If we foster some good will, maybe it won't cost us a fortune to keep him.

 

If he eventually defers to Sengün and be okay with a reduction of his PT, I'd be okay with him staying but it should be really about reasonable contract numbers.

If he is really that selfless as you say.

It is still a business and not a charity so there is only so much goodwill to be had and given.

I think you are a man screaming at the cloud because the trade rumors will come, it is the NBA, the rumors are part of sports.

If he cannot deal with it, then it shows he is an emotionally unstable player with smaller red flags.

 

If you recall , I was the one who started that mess about Wood being only one of 5 players to post X stats for last season.

Those stats were 20 / 10 and 37% from 3 and with shooting splits better than AD.

Really solid numbers and in general the type of production just about every team in the league is searching for at the 5 spot.


But those numbers alone don't make a guy worth a max contract. So much of his offense is forced & he's really a black hole and then there's the lack of impact on the defensive end.


Wood is a good player who could thrive with team around him but he aint worth max money.

 

Please give an example of a potential trade for Wood in this scenario.

 

Sorry to butt into your question to @Nook but I posed this same question a week or so ago: what is the ideal return if we were to trade Wood? I don't think I ever got a response and I don't know if the board has a baseline either. An unprotected first rounder is too little but would an unprotected 1st and a protected 1st start conversations? Would it take two unprotected 1sts? Hell, are we really wanting draft picks for Wood and, if not, what are we asking for in return, positionally? By the looks of things we have enough players right now vying for PT in the back court so are we wanting a center in return? Assuming Sengun is our future 4 or 5, does it make us look at SFs? Contrary to popular belief, I don't want to trade Wood just to trade him--outside of our rookies he's our most valuable trade chip so we have to use it wisely.

 

Agreed. He is like the first Rockets version of Trevor Ariza...

 

Ahhhhh Ariza 1.0...the version that tried so hard to iso and dribble drive only to realize, mid possession, that he don't have the requisite handles.