This is true. Be hard having two non-defenders in the line up. I like him more as a bench guy. Maybe Ham can straighten him out on defense to some degree. If so we got something and Colin still waiting in the wings.
Dude needs to earn a starting spot by finally playing decent D. Until he does this, we can’t have both him and LeOffense in the starting lineup together. I give him a 2% chance of significantly changing his attitude about defense. We shall see.
I'm pretty thrilled. On the one hand I wasn't sweating the 14 spot on the roster and I was also good with giving Castleton a shot if we couldn't get anyone else. I wouldn't have minded Biyombo at all especially for added D in the playoffs. But Wood is a steal at the minimum and he's got a LOT to prove. I think we can get the reclamation project going with him as we did with Monk. At the very least Wood provides scoring at the 5/4 if AD goes down for a spell. Sort of the Thomas Bryant role for the regular season games that AD will inevitably miss. Not sure I believe in Wood starting alongside AD but you never know. He would definitely have to step it up on D. Not holding my breath for that. But theoretically the fit is there offensively with Wood being able to stretch the floor with outside shooting. Bottom line, we needed to bolster the 4/5 spot and this helps do exactly that. It's a minimum contract, the 14th spot. This should do the trick. Meanwhile hold on to Castleton and develop him for next year. I think he's a keeper.
I love Wood's offensive game. not sure how good we'll be defensively, but we'll be fun to watch at least.
Just woke up on the East Coast and saw this signing. Not the type of Morning Wood I'm accustomed to. This is a whatever signing to me, with obvious boom potential. Attitude just needs to be in line.
Damn, just yesterday was commenting here I was against it. But now he's here so let's see the positives. For the 14th spot at the min, you can't get better than that. Great replacement for when AD goes down. Hopefully he had an enlightening offseason where he saw how dry is the market for him. This works as long as he earns all his minutes like everyone else. If he plays just because of his reputation ahead of other guys, that's when things go south. I get the upside and could really unlock things for us that we wouldn't be able to with any other available guy. But the key is really if he has to work for the minutes or not. Now the question is: is he ahead of Hayes?
yeah, getting drummond vibes. whatever, have to hope for the best now. i think this is a bigger risk than people are thinking right now, though. we had a group that was likely to be low-conflict and were mostly familiar with each other on and off the court. the biggest positive is that when AD's out, wood will allow us to try to legitimately outscore teams (lebron couldn't do it by himself last year). other than that, i'm a defense guy, and this ain't that.
As I said before, I am worried about his attitude and defense. On the other hand, he's a really good fit and you can't find a better player for the $$. He knows everyone will keep an eye on him. If he does not succeed here, he might end up out of the league. Medium risk for us, but high reward. Let's see what happens. In the worst case, he's a regular season minute-eater who can score if AD gets injured, which is exactly what we need. I am not sure how Wood is playable in the play-offs though.
Definitely hoping for the best and hoping Wood gets on board. I have concerns particularly about how well he will handle the pressures of just being a Laker. Have to hope Ham, LeBron, and AD can get him to buy in. The opportunity is going to be there for him to really get his career on track. There are positives to his game and we’ve got some great teachers on our staff.
Yeah, just doubling down that this really lie on how we approach it. Best case scenario: we treat him as 14th guy. He buys in. Understands he may have DNPs. Accepts he is in the same bracket of Hayes and he either outplays him on training camp/practices/games or he will not play much when AD healthy. Worst case scenario: he wants a regular spot on the rotation. Pouts because he's playing less than X minutes. Takes minutes out of Hayes, Vando or Rui without deserving. Has some bad behaviour in practices/games (don't think he had before?) that hit the news and media gets crazy about it. Actually plays frequently while having terrible advanced stats (like Russ) For me it's a no brainer. We are the Lakers and he's Christian Wood. We should have ALL the leverage and be very clear that he's not above Hayes or Vando. We have NOTHING to lose by not playing him and he has EVERYTHING to lose if this doesn't work for him. But recently we screwed a championship-level team by promising roles. Rob showed he learned from mistakes before by not letting LeGM take over. Hopefully he did it too on this topic. I'm choosing to trust Rob here and until further notice, we got the BPA for the 14th spot who addresses the main concern of this roster: how to handle ADs 20-30 missed games. We did that and should be happy about it at least until October when we will start to see if any of the above concerns materialize.
I think Lebron's defending 3s is overblown. I would say that in many teams, the 3 spot is taken by corner shooters. Only the stars are drivers so many times we can deploy that lineup and have LeBron stand on the corner. I do agree it doesn't work with all teams but I see matchups where it's not that big of a deal and the size advantage justifies it
Yeah. I agree that we have all the leverage here. Wood needs this to work out if he is going to have any kind of career beyond this contract. He can't demand anything as there was little to no interest in him around the league.
Wanted to touch on a few topics going on in here... 1) do not start him. Not unless either AD or Bron are sitting. Bron isn't a SF at this stage. starting Wood might make AD happy but you're putting Bron in a position to fail and that mucks up the entire starting group. If this was Bron of 4-5 years ago, that could work... but not this version of Bron. I think this also cements Rui as a starter, Wood needs all the defenders next to him we can spare. I handcuff Vando to him as much as possible. 2) the notion that he's the 14th guy. Just because he's the 14th addition doesn't make him the 14th guy. I see this going around a lot when trying to minimize the damage he can do. At the very least he's ahead of JHS, Lewis, Hayes, and Cam. I'd venture to guess in all likelihood, if Rui starts, Wood the first big off the bench. Making him the 6th or 7th guy. Regarding we can just cut him if it doesn't work: technically. But we're over the tax and can't afford to be cycling through bigs or to pay dead money and those tax implications. 3) Hayes vs. Wood: Wood is definitely ahead of him on the depth chart. I hope no promises were made but he didn't come here to sit behind Hayes. It he thought that was his role, he would've signed elsewhere. Personally, that's two reclamation projects and I think gambling on two at the same position is a bad bet. Biyombo is much more of a sure thing and was the right call here.
I honestly don't think we would have to cut him. If he fails I expect the talking heads to do what they always do = blame us. lol. I think we could throw him in some kind of trade to get rid of him though especially if his numbers are still solid. But I do get your points here. There's definitely some risks with this signing despite the low price tag.
