The Philadelphia 76ers should monitor Christian Wood’s status

Despite an incredibly harrowing external situation, the Philadelphia 76ers have remained largely together in the face of adversity so far this season.

Sure, sometimes the on-field fits look awkward, and the team could desperately use more assists, rebounding, and a faster pace – almost like they are without a player who specializes in those areas – but against the odds, the team has stuck together, and players like Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Seth Curry, and Georges Niang have all grown their chemistry both on and off the court.

Others teams around the NBA, by contrast, have seen quite a bit of subtle and not-so-subtle infighting between players and even coaches.

From Tristan Thompson effectively giving a vote of no confidence to Luke Walton before he was fired in Sacramento to Boston’s increasingly tense locker room, some teams have struggled harder than others during the 2021-22 season, with potential trades surely set to shake things up with both if the aforementioned franchises.

But nothing to this point has gotten quite as fiery as what went down with the Houston Rockets in their New Years Day game versus the Denver Nuggets. It all started before the game, when Christian Wood had to come off the bench after missing his COIVD testing window earlier in the game. He played just eight minutes and didn’t log a point in his efforts.

Then came a halftime verbal dispute between well-respected assistant coach John Lucas and Kevin Porter Jr. stemming from a similar interaction earlier in the game. Per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Adrian Wojnarowski, this resulted in Porter throwing something – what, we don’t know – and leaving the arena altogether before the start of the third.

If all of that was the end of it, we’d be looking at a pretty wild situation but to place a proverbial cherry on top of this dogfood sundae, Wood refused to check back into the game in the second half and rode out the contest as a DNP – personal decision, which is a new designation that I guess needs to be added to Basketball-Reference.

Unfortunate? For Houston, you betcha, but in a weird way, Christian Wood’s situation could actually help the Philadelphia 76ers, as his availability via trade could be incredibly beneficial to their ultimate goals.

The Philadelphia 76ers may look to include Christian Wood in a potential trade.

If Houston Rockets GM Rafael Stone was honest, I would think he’d like to trade Christian Wood at the 2022 NBA trade deadline.

Now mind you, I don’t think he’s desperate to move the 26-year-old combo big, or that he is even the player the first-year exec would like to move most – that honor would belong to John Wall – but there are a number of reasons why the team would rather roll forward without the $41 million forward on their roster.

For one thing, Wood is quite a bit older than the rest of the team’s “core” players, a mildly unfortunate byproduct of being signed to play off of James Harden before he worked his way out of Houston via a franchise-resetting trade to Brooklyn. While Wood could still stick around and play off of the team’s developmental Big 3 of Jalen Green, Alperen Şengün, and Kevin Porter Jr. – assuming he too isn’t traded – and serve as a complementary veteran – think J.J. Redick in 2017-18 – that may not be the route Houston would most like to take.

Speaking on the concept of the “complementary veteran” a little longer, Wood has been tabbed as a bit of a problem since the Rockets went from really good to really bad, with the one-two punch of missing his COVID test and then refusing to check into the second half versus Denver signifying a player in need of a veteran leader, not one ready to fill the role.

If the Rockets were on the fence about trading Wood in December, they might be decided on this, the second day of January, and the value they could expect in return may have taken a hit from earlier in 2021.

Unfortunate? For Stone, most definitely, but it isn’t all doom and bloom in Harris County. Plenty of playoffs teams, from the Chicago Bulls to the Portland Trail Blazers, could use a 6-foot-10 power forward who averages 17.3 points and 10.6 rebounds on a 23.4 percent usage rate, especially one who shoots 36.2 percent on 4.9 attempts over the past two seasons as a member of the Rockets.

Are the Philadelphia 76ers one of those teams? Yes, and in more ways than one.

On the court, Wood is an interesting fit with the Sixers. He was teammates with Joel Embiid once before, though they have only shared the court as enemies, and would instantly help to improve the team’s rebounding, which is quite literally the worst in the entire association. While only 71 of his 459 shots from the field came from corner 3s, he’s made them at a 44.0 percent clip, and 74.5 percent of his 3 point attempts have been of the catch-and-shoot variety, even if he’s only making them at a 32.8 percent clip.

Ideally, you’d probably want to secure a power forward that both attempts and hits all of those shots at a higher clip – though 44.0 percent on corner 3s is good – but when you consider only Georges Niang has better stats on the Sixers right now, Wood, well, would help the Sixers’ offense to run more efficiently when playing alongside Embiid, especially in a lineup that also features Seth Curry, Danny Green, and “The Minivan.”

And with Embiid off the court? Well, Wood could do some damage too, especially as a speedy center.

Despite employing two of the biggest centers in the NBA, neither Embiid nor his direct backup, Andre Drummond, are particularly good pick-and-roll men. Embiid runs the play an average of 3.3 times per game and puts up an average of 3.6 points per game on the look, mostly because he scores 53.2 percent of the time and draws “and ones” 21.5 percent of the time. All in all, that places Embiid in the 53.5th percentile of roll men, which isn’t great but, again, has more to do with frequency and play-calling than a deficiency in his game. Drummond sets about a third as many picks per game and falls in a comparable percentile to Embiid – 51.9 – but he has a turnover frequency of 22.2, which is a whopping 19.7 percent higher than “The Process'” 2.5.

Wood would fall much closer to Embiid than Drummond in terms of frequency, points, turnover percentage, and overall percentile – 3.0, 3.2, 2.5, and 53.5, respectively – and could theoretically be a much better partner in crime for Tyrese Maxey since he’s a good athlete for a 6-foot-10, 214-pound man. Throw in a few lobs, and the duo could run a pretty fun second unit and free up rotation minutes for Seth Curry to run the point with a frontcourt of Danny Green, Niang, and Embiid.

To secure Wood via trade, the Sixers would have to either trade Curry, Green, Tobias Harris, or Ben Simmons to make a deal work financially, with players like D.J. Augustin, Daniel Theis, and noted Daryl Morey favorite Eric Gordon – but not John Wall – all theoretically on the table to either make the money work or sweeten the deal. If the Sixers can pull off a deal to swap out Harris for Wood and Gordon, I would imagine Daryl Morey would at the very least consider it, as the team is in need of a shakeup with players who better fit alongside, Embiid but that would depend on how much draft capital Houston would require to get said deal done, as I would imagine the team would like to keep as much optionality as possible until the Simmons deal gets done.

But a straight-up trade isn’t the only way Wood could help the Sixers and their roster. No, if the Rockets have a desire to move Wood and would like to secure either draft picks or young prospects to help restock their cabinet – plus expiring contracts, of course – the team may be willing to ship Wood to a third party as part of a bigger trade centered around Ben Simmons. If, say, a team like the New Orleans Pelicans wanted to trade Brandon Ingram to the Sixers for Simmons but feared that Steven Adams might not be a perfect fit alongside a non-shooting point guard, maybe they’d be willing to offload the New Zealand big man to Houston, where he’d be a pretty good fit, for some added draft capital.

When a player is in demand and could theoretically be traded for draft assets themselves as the headliner of his own deal, roping them into a bigger deal could be mutually beneficial for all parties involved.

Daryl Morey likes to say that opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. For all we know, Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood could be traded before you read this, and all of this speculation could be for not. But if that doesn’t happen and the situation in Houston doesn’t drastically improve, the chances of a pretty big roster overhaul in the Space City might grow considerably. If that happens, maybe the Philadelphia 76ers could get in on the action and either re-acquire their former player via trade or leverage his talents – and contract – for a better-fitting player in a multiple-team deal. Either way, keep an eye on this one, Philly fans.