Wood knew he would thrive here with the PnR offense and one of the best PnR guards ever in Harden. And throw Wall into the mix, and Wood will be feasting all season.
I just want to add if it has not been mentioned before, watching his body language and demeanor kinda brings down his potential for me. But i will say he is young and a first time starter with big expectations so I’ll give him that. The way I see it, he’s not the next Hakeem (lol for the thread that we have going on) and he is not polished (strong) enough yet to really do any damage on his own account without really being fed the ball well. His quickness is great but his ball handling is lacking to make it serviceable as of yet (too many turnovers when he tries to make moves). the biggest thing i want to see over the season is him being humbled on this level where he now is getting the attention and spotlight. To mature and really work on getting stronger and mentally tougher for whats to come cause he has a bright future if he dials in. Maybe im a little hard on him and i tend to be a little more reserved when everyone is praising him as the next big thing. I think he still has alot more to work on before we can say he’s taking us to the next level. Wish him the best!
To me he has the talent and scoring ability to succeed. For him to make the step to be consistent as a star he needs to increase his weight first of all, but also needs to put better effort into the defensive end. If that is put a body on a man when a shot goes up for a rebound, run back on defense to prevent big man leaks, jump at the right time when trying to blocks passes or shots, and know when to reach in for the steal and when to shuffle his feet and put his hands up. All this will come with time and proper coaching. Obviously he will need to have the will to do this. But I am excited and pleased with what he has been able to bring so far.
edit the thread title to something like "Christian Wood is the X-Factor" and all will be forgiven. I'm serious.
It’s like he improves from game to game. He said it in the interview after last night, that he feels like that aswell. People around here forget, that despite being 25, he has actually only played around 100 games. So from an experience standpoint, he’s not far ahead of a 2nd year player. he will be so good for us. Even defensively he has been awesome over the last 2 games.
I saw some really good things on the defensive side of the ball the last few games. If he can bulk up a little bit, he could be good there. His ability to contest and also quickly jump again for the rebound is pretty nice.
He’s not going to bulk up, and that’s fine, but he does need to improve his strength, especially hand strength.
He is currently 94th in Defensive Plus Minus, better than I thought he'd be. 44th OPM 50th Overall 66th Win Shares 82th True Shooting % His PER is real good. https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_advanced.html Still some road ahead to be real game changer.