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.