I had several posters ask for a scouting report so I figured I would do one on here. Profile physical: Wood is an extraordinarily long player at nearly 7’0” tall with an nearly 7’5” wingspan. He physically reminds me of former Rocket Eddie Griffin or former Buck Anthony Randolph. At only 220 lbs and it is hard for him to put on weight. Because of his style of play he needs to put on lean muscle and not just bulk. He has exceptional lateral quickness and dexterity and has an explosive first step and elevation. He has soft hands and relies on his quickness rather than his physical strength. He doesn’t just have a high vertical, he gets off the ground very fast. When he was in college a scout compared his body to Kevin Garnett, but Garnett was larger and far stronger in his core. He will never be a physical player inside offensively or defensively. Maturity and effort have kept him from being an all star. He has been accused of not caring enough about the game and lacking discipline. He is someone that plays very emotional and at times gets carried away with individual match ups. He doesn’t always make the smart play when his emotions take over but his actual basketball aptitude is fairly high. He easily grasps concepts and set plays but he can lose focus and is guilty of being out of position too often. He has improved in this regard but he has to get even better. Game: He is an exceptional player at finishing near the rim with his massive wing span, soft hands and quick leaping. He intuitively knows when to roll to the basket. He doesn’t like physical contact but he is so quick on his feet that he draws fouls and usually finishes well inside when he puts the ball on the floor. He is quick running the floor, but his combination of an exceptional handle and first step allow him to go baseline against almost anyone. He really has the dribble and first step of a premier guard and he is nearly 7’0”. His shot has been a work in progress. His stroke has become more consistent and he is very difficult to block. He tends to get decent looks because he can put the ball on the floor and drive. He really is like a 7’0” guard on the offensive side of the floor. He is going to shoot open threes and put the ball on the floor to beat his man to the basket. He has to get better at handling physical play but doesn’t absorb it well and it impacts his shot. His largest flaw on the offensive end is that he doesn’t pass well or set his teammates up. Once he gets the ball he likely shoots or passes straight out to the other ball handler. He isn’t going to find guys cutting or in the corners. He has said he wants to improve this part of his game but I don’t think he will ever be even average. Fit: How does he fit offensively for the Rockets? If he can shoot 35% from 3 next year, he will be a massive improvement over Covington and Capela on the offensive side. He can stretch the defense with his shooting as a center which allows him to play with Westbrook. He also gets out very well in transition which will fit well with Westbrook and Nwaba. With Harden he is an excellent trailer and with his soft hands will also get some baskets off Harden bailouts in the paint. What isn’t discussed but is important is that he adds the dimension of being able to put the ball on the floor and score which is what the Rockets have lacked. The concern with Wood is on the defensive side for the Rockets. He can be bulled over at times by guys like Anthony Davis and Giannis. He isn’t very strong and will lose his balance. He also has too many lapses on switches which can cause a cascade effect on a switch heavy defense. The positives are that he has exceptional mobility, and is physically ideally suited for a team that switches. He guards the perimeter well and is an excellent help defender with his length and explosive leaping. He alters a lot of shots just with his arms out stretched. As a rebounder he is overall solid but I don’t know how good he will be in a playoff game because of his lack of strength. He does a good job working in for boards though and draws a lot of offensive fouls on rebounding attempts. Conclusion: Overall he is an extremely volatile player when it comes to outcome. He has some extremely rare physical traits and tools and assuming Harden and Westbrook remain, he is in an ideal situation to maximize his ability. He needs to improve the consistency of his shoot and he needs to remain focused and locked in defensively. Those are all doable but not guaranteed. Usually a Tiger doesn’t change it’s stripes but the Rockets are banking on the upside. Misc: He doesn’t mind playing center and has said he is a small ball center. He has fallen from a likely lottery pick to undrafted and played overseas.
Nice thread, I guess this would be a better place for this post as well. Repost: The more I watch film and look closer at this guy I'm impressed. He should develop his body and game like Anthony Davis. His combine measurables, skills he's developing and body type are similar when Davis was a slim younger player. Check out the Davis comparisons when he was drafted: Christian Wood Draft Scouting Report "Christian Wood is a long, lanky big man who eerily resembles the body type of Anthony Davis when the All-Star entered the league in 2012. Both players were measured at 6-foot-9 ¼ without sneakers and 6-foot-10 ½ in sneakers at their respective Draft Combines. Wood weighed in at 216 pounds, six fewer than Davis had. Davis has the longer wingspan by about two inches, but Wood has the advantage in standing reach by 3.5 inches. This is not to say that Wood is on par with Davis – he’s not – but there are some similarities. Like Davis, Wood is an athletic big man who can rebound and defend, and there is promise at the offensive end. He has a soft touch around the basket, oftentimes showing off his floater. He’s also very capable of taking the ball off of the dribble with both hands and has some range on his jumper. That jumper is currently unreliable from the outside but I see that improving if he puts in the work. He’s much stronger than he looks while playing at the offensive end. He fights for position and deals well with contact. He reminds me a lot of Zach Randolph with his ability to finish awkward shots around the basket. When he extends around the hoop, with that length and reach, it’s difficult to challenge his shot. With his athleticism and length, he could become a nightmare to defend in pick-and-rolls. He also runs the floor very well and is patient when dealing with double-teams. Wood was a great collegiate rebounder, using his length and timing to haul in misses. He’ll need to fight for position more often in the NBA if he is to translate his rebounding prowess, which means he’ll need to gain weight. I believe he has the frame to put on weight and strength. Wood is much more motivated by offense than he is by defense. He doesn’t play as strong at the defensive end and is oftentimes pushed around. He’s a great weak-side shot blocker but struggles on the ball. Adding that previously-mentioned weight and strength would go along way for him at the defensive end. Overall, he has a lot of potential. If the right coaching staff gets him, and he comes into the league motivated to be great, he could turn himself into one of the steals of this Draft." https://www.nba.com/celtics/draft/profile-christian-wood#:~:text=Christian Wood is a long,six fewer than Davis had. And what's great is he complements both Westbrook and Harden. Spacing for Russ, lob threat and PnR for Harden. He can even defend, block shots and rebound to give Tucker rest.
I enjoyed this breakdown as well: Detroit Pistons: Just how good was Christian Wood in 2019-20? by Maxwell Ogden3 months ago Follow @MaxwellOgden The Detroit Pistons have a decision to make that could cost them upwards of $15 million per season. The question is: Just how good was Christian Wood in 2019-20? Troy Weaver is going to face a number of landscape-altering decisions during his first offseason as general manager of the Detroit Pistons. Few will be quite as significant as figuring out the future of breakout big man Christian Wood, who will be an unrestricted free agent. Debates will rage as to whether or not the Pistons should pay top dollar to re-sign Wood, but there’s a question that must first be answered: How good was he really? Despite receiving a great deal of internet hype, Wood went undrafted in 2015. In the four years that preceded his arrival in Detroit, he bounced around the NBA and received a vast majority of his playing time in the G League. After earning All-NBA G League Second Team honors in 2017-18, Wood finally began to find NBA minutes near the end of 2018-19—and broke out in 2019-20. Detroit acquired Wood by claiming him off of waivers, which only adds to his remarkably improbable success story. He went on to appear in 62 of a possible 66 games for the Pistons, starting on 12 separate occasions. Due to his per 36 production and the per-game level he reached during the second half of the season, Wood is now one of the most coveted players on a star-starved market. At the time when the 2019-20 regular season was suspended, Wood was averaging 13.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in just 21.4 minutes per game. The per 36 numbers paint the picture of why so many were intrigued, as they clearly read as star-caliber. On a per 36 minutes basis, Wood averaged 22.0 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.8 offensive boards, 1.6 assists, 1.5 blocks, 0.9 steals, and 1.5 three-point field goals made. This was just one season after he averaged 24.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.4 blocks, 1.0 steal, and 1.3 three-point field goals made per 36 minutes in 2018-19. The sample size was admittedly limited to 21 games, but the carryover from one season to the next implies sustainability. During that 83-game stretch, Wood averaged 22.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.5 blocks, 0.9 steals, and 1.4 three-point field goals made per 36 minutes. In other words: Over the course of a season’s worth of games, Wood posted All-Star numbers. Still just 24 years of age, the belief has now been sparked that Wood could turn those per 36 statistics into per game contributions. That narrative was furthered by the fact that he actually began to do so in 2019-20. Over the course of the final 22 games of the season, Wood averaged 19.7 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 1.4 three-point field goals made in just 29.9 minutes per game. Cut the sample size down to the final 15 games and Wood looks like a bonafide star: 22.3 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 1.7 three-point field goals made in 34.1 minutes. Wood also shot 56.2 percent from the field and 41.0 percent from beyond the arc during that stretch. That may seem impossible to sustain, but Wood posted a slash line of .558/.380/.742 over the 83 games that he played between 2018-19 and 2019-20. It doesn’t hurt that Wood’s final four games of the season saw him post point tallies of 29, 30, 22, and 32. It’s even more helpful that he did that in games against respected defensive players such as Steven Adams, Joel Embiid, Taj Gibson, and Rudy Gobert. The question of the hour is simple: What exactly did that do for the Pistons? Wood was the only qualified player—minimum: a mere 15 games—with whom Detroit had a positive net rating. That mark of 2.0 with him on the court plummeted to -8.4 during the minutes played without Wood present. That’s a difference of 10.4 points per 100 possessions—the type of dropoff that’s generally saved for the elite players of the NBA. Furthermore, Wood accumulated a Real Plus-MInus of 3.31—a number that would rank third amongst both power forwards and centers. That includes rankings of sixth amongst power forwards in Offensive Real Plus-Minus and 11th in Defensive RPM. Shift it over to the centers and his marks would rank fourth in Offensive RPM and 14th in Defensive RPM. In other words: Wood not only produced star-caliber individual statistics, but an All-Star level of value to team success. That certainly implies that he would be a player worth investing in, both in the short-term and the long-term. The issue for Detroit is that it may not be able to determine the market value for a Wood, as he’s already garnering interest from around the NBA. Ian Begley of SNY reported that there are members of the New York Knicks who are, “Enamored,” with Wood as a target in free agency. Furthermore, James L. Edwards III of The Athletic reported that Wood could receive offers of up to $16 million per season in free agency. There’s no possible way to guarantee that Wood will be able to build upon his success now that the NBA sees it coming, but his production and value were undeniable in 2019-20. It’s up to Troy Weaver and the Detroit Pistons to determine just how much they believe in Christian Wood as a franchise cornerstone. https://pistonpowered.com/2020/07/3... accumulated a Real,and 11th in Defensive RPM.
Wood needs to play next to an enforcer type like 6'8 James Johnson (240 lbs with 7'1 wingspan). Rockets should have traded EGo and pick to OKC for JJ's expiring contract. Mavs snagged him instead.
His entire NBA career before last year doesn't even equal a full season in the NBA especially considering he played like 8 mins a game max during that stretch. It could be argued that last season was almost like his rookie year in the NBA and it was under Casey in Detroit who for most of the year kept him on a short leash. He was still able to absolutely beast at the end of the season when he got the chance to start. That in itself is impressive. Averaging 22/10 that last month is like ROTY territory. He seems to have a natural feel for the game and I wouldn't be surprised if his passing and defensive awareness get better with more time and experience. A lot of those mental things could be ROOKIE mistakes which is totally reasonable. We just have to remember - he hasn't even played much in the NBA, he played with terrible players and a bad coach on a bad team. He was just starting to find his rhythm when he got starters minutes for basically the first time in his career. If the season wasn't cut short who knows what his price tag could have been. He is a young player and there should be no reason for him not to take a big leap next year just as many rookies do from year one to year two.
Wood bounced around after the Rockets. He was projected as a lottery pick coming out of college but fell all the way out of the draft as teams took him off their board because of his poor effort He claims his effort only improved after he was cut from a team in China and realized he could destroy his career
He wasn’t signing with the Rockets. He is a client of LBJ’s agency so he is getting paid down the road by the Lakers.
Be nice if we could put Harrell next to Wood but if I had to choose between the two it would be Wood.
This guy seems like a great fit for our scheme. I'm not sure if that contract is a value or not, but I'm definitely happy with the player in the abstract.
Nice scouting reports. Since we are still an analytically driven team, worth noting that Wood's RAPM, BPM, raptor rating and most other advanced stats rate him as a certified all star in terms of impact.
I get a Chris Bosh comparison for CW. Going to be real fun watching this kid play. If fans are allowed I would really like to see him play in person.
I know Christian Wood’s game pretty well and I’d say Nook’s analysis is just about exactly right, but I do think he’s a little better switch defender than he gets credit for. Not great at all, but he can switch. Everything else is pretty much how I see him, especially the mental aspect. If he wants to be great, he can be, but he can also get lazy off of that fat contract. He needs to be coached up, and he needs to keep working. I think he will. I believe in the guy and think he will continue to develop, but there’s that small lingering doubt about complacency in the back of my mind that I just can’t shake yet. Time will tell...
