Will Christian Wood Take Advantage Of Final Games?

Christian Wood is back with the Philadelphia 76ers. Will he be able to take advantage of some increased playing time and prove he’s a good player?

Christian Wood was brought in by the Philadelphia 76ers as one of the many rookies set to make their NBA debut in Philly this season. Wood was at one point projected to be a first round talent, but fell all the way to the point where he was undrafted by the time draft night was over. His body fat was said to be an issue that hurt his draft stock.

The Sixers, always looking to find a diamond in the rough, picked Wood up for a low price due to him being undrafted. He did decently in the preseason, and did well enough for the Sixers to bring him onto their final 15-man roster, which was actually a pretty tight race between several of the players who were on the bubble.

Wood has been on and off of the Sixers several times this season. In just this first season in the NBA, Wood has been assigned and recalled from the Sixers’ D-League affiliate Delaware 87ers six times this season. As a D-Leaguer, Wood averaged 17.3 points and 9.4 rebounds per game.

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Four of those D-League trips were minor league assignments, and the final two times have been waivers and 10-day contracts. Wood is currently on his second 10-day contract with the Sixers, which is the final one they can offer him before having to offer him a full contract. The current contract he is on will expire on April 6th, and the Sixers only have four games remaining after that date. So it might not be worth it for them to sign him to an official contract when this 10-day expires.

Still, there are three games remaining for the Sixers, and those could lead to some opportunities for Christian Wood to show that he’s worth keeping around, or show some other team in the NBA that he’s worth signing next season.

So far, Wood’s NBA impact has been less than optimal. He has played in 16 games this season as a Sixer, and only scored double-digit points one time. He has never been able to get more than 8 rebounds in a single game. To be fair, though, Wood rarely plays more than 10 minutes per game. He’s only played more than 20 minutes just a single time in his career.

The other issue is consistency. Wood has played a maximum of just 6 consecutive games, and the first two games of that stretch combined for just one minute of playing time.

The low playing time and lack of appearances in games is due to the nature of the Sixers’ frontcourt. It’s so clogged with talent like Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel, and Carl Landry and Jerami Grant are further up in the minutes chain than Wood.

Now, Nerlens Noel is rarely healthy enough to play as we near the end of the season, and Jahlil Okafor is done for the season as he recovers from meniscus surgery. That alone opens up nearly 60 minutes of playing time in the frontcourt positions. Diving that up between Jerami Grant, Carl Landry, Elton Brand, and Christian Wood should give Wood at least 15-20 minutes or so per game to work with in the few games he has left in the NBA this season.

What he does with those minutes could dictate the next chapter in his NBA career. It’s going to be a hard sell to the Sixers, convincing them that he should be around, especially with all the talent they have coming in. Okafor and Noel should still be around, in addition to Joel Embiid (if healthy) and Dario Saric (if he’s really coming over this upcoming season). Jerami Grant doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, either, with the huge breakout year he has had.

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If Wood can show that he’s an explosive player like he did in the preseason, and one that can make attacks at the rim as well as hit some shots from around the floor, he may find a team that likes what he can do. If he plays like he has the rest of this season, he will probably find himself on a D-League team to start next year.