The Dallas Mavericks completed a surprise trade Wednesday night to sign big man Christian Wood from the Houston Rockets for the 2022 first-round pick (Dallas has the 26th overall pick), plus Boban. Marjanovic, Trey Burke, Sterling Brown and Marquese Chriss.
Also read:
Thus, when the league finals are still being played, before the NBA offseason “officially” begins, the Mavs have already managed to make a big move.
Here are five things to know about new team member Christian Wood:
Wood, a native of Long Beach, California, plays center and power forward (power forward). In high school he graduated from Findlay College Prep at Henderson International School in Henderson, Nevada, where with his team he went on to have a 54-game winning streak. In his final season, the team went 35-1.
Wood was ranked 36th. best player in the recruiting class of 2013, when he signed with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
With six seasons of NBA experience, Wood has played for six different teams — most recently spending two years with the Houston Rockets.
He was originally undrafted in 2015 and joined the Rockets’ summer league team. He was eventually signed by the Philadelphia 76ers, but in his rookie season he bounced back and forth between the 76ers and the G-League Delaware 87ers. The following year he signed with Charlotte and played 13 games with the Hornets.
He then made brief stops in Milwaukee and New Orleans before having a standout season in Detroit, where he played 62 games — most off the bench — averaging 13.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in 21.4 minutes.
He was then traded to the Rockets on a 3-year, $41 million deal (he will play his final year with the Mavericks). When he was signed by Houston, James Harden was on the team and there were high hopes for a championship, which were dashed soon after when Harden demanded to leave the team and was sent to Brooklyn.
In two seasons with the Rockets, Wood has averaged 19.1 points and just under 10 rebounds, playing 31.4 minutes per game. Last season he averaged 17.9 points per game and 10.1 rebounds. He also put up 1.0 blocks per game. At the end of March he stopped playing because of a hamstring injury.
In his two years with Houston, he shot (and hit) more 3-pointers than at any other time in his career. He’s a 38% accurate marksman from long range, and that stat is on the rise.
Wood is an obvious upgrade at positions 4 and 5 for the Mavericks, who were lacking last season. Adding size was one of the Mavs’ main goals heading into the offseason, and they accomplished it with Wood right away, without upsetting the team’s foundation.
