2024 Free Agents - Christian Wood

Summary
After bouncing around in the league for several years early in his career, Wood emerged onto the scene in the back half of the '19-'20 season for the Pistons. Wood is a skilled big that can stretch the floor, hitting nearly 38% from three over the last five seasons. He can attack hard closeouts, and finishes decently well at the rim. He even has some off the dribble ability. While he's not going to blow by anyone, he can create enough space off the dribble to get his shot off, and doesn't need that much space due to his height.

Wood can also operate as either a lob threat in pick-and-roll or as a pick-and-pop threat. He has good hands to catch passes in crowds of defenders, which makes him even more of a threat as a roll man.

Wood has the skills to play power forward rather than center, but playing him at that position takes away a lot of what makes Wood unique as a skilled big. He's also probably someone that you want hanging around the rim more than the perimeter defensively, although he isn't a great rim protector either. While his block rate is decent, he doesn't have the positional awareness and defensive IQ to be a true anchor on that end. He has never posted good rim protection numbers, and he has never been very good at boxing out.

However, if you have another big, skilled power forward that can slide up to center and play with Wood, then you have something interesting. That's where I thought he could thrive in Dallas, as the Mavericks could play him and Maxi Kleber together, which gave them size defensively since Kleber has always been an underrated rim protector, while still having the ability to play five-out offensively. We saw some of that in '22-'23, and lineups with both Wood and Kleber were moderately successful. The Lakers had some success in this regard playing Wood next to Anthony Davis, having a positive point differential.

Overall, Wood was just never fully trusted by Jason Kidd and the Mavs' coaching staff, nor Darvin Ham and the Lakers' staff. Wood is certainly talented, but there are real questions about if he can contribute to winning, and we have yet to see him in the playoffs.

Cap Considerations
Wood has a $3.1 million player option for '24-'25, and if he declines that option he will be an unrestricted free agent with a $2.1 million cap hold and Non-Bird Rights.

Due to the increase in the salary cap not being very high, his minimum salary for '24-'25 is slightly less than what his player option amount is for, so if Wood thinks he will only get minimum offers, he should opt in, at least solely for financial reasons.

If Wood opts for free agency, the Lakers will be somewhat limited in their means of re-signing him. Since they will only have his Non-Bird Rights, the most they could offer him using the Non-Bird Exception is a contract starting at $3.6 million. They could use their Mid-Level Exception or Bi-Annual Exception (if available) to give him more than $3.6 million.

Other teams will have multiple ways to sign Wood as even teams without cap space could likely use any of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, Taxpayer MLE, or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. Since he signed a minimum contract in 2023, teams will hope to get him at the minimum in 2024 too.