Christian Wood – Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets traded away James Harden and P.J. Tucker last season at the start of their rebuilding process and they could find themselves a part of many more trades heading into the trade deadline this year.
Not only are Eric Gordon, D.J. Augustin and John Wall three names teams are monitoring, but Christian Wood is drawing a lot of trade interest right now because he is currently on one of the most favorable contracts in the entire NBA.
Wood signed a three-year, $41M deal with the Houston Rockets ahead of the start of last season and he quickly became one of the breakout players of the 2020-21 season. After averaging 21.0 points and 9.6 rebounds last season, Christian Wood has followed up his breakout season averaging 17.1 points, 10.0 rebounds and shooting 47.7% from the floor this year.
The Rockets are not actively looking to trade Christian Wood this season, but ESPN’s Tim MacMahon stated last month on ‘The Lowe Post’ Podcast that the team is “willing to listen” to offers coming their way for the 26-year-old big man.
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Christian Wood himself may actually want to move on to a new team too given all the frustrations of being with the Rockets and losing. Not too long ago, the Rockets had an altercation in the locker room at halftime that not only resulted in Kevin Porter Jr. leaving the arena mid-game, but Wood refusing to play during the second-half.
Things have seemed to be “hashed” out between the coaching staff and the players, but things boiling over for Wood should not be too much of a surprise. Houston has struggled, they are rebuilding, and Christian Wood is their best performing player.
Playing the best basketball of his career right now, Christian Wood is just wasting time with the Rockets, hence why a move to a contending team could be very favorable to his career moving forward.
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Set to be an unrestricted free agent following next season, Wood’s value is not going to be higher than it is right now and the Rockets do run the risk of losing him with no return compensation in free agency.
Proving to be a double-double threat every night and also being able to step out on the perimeter to make shots, Christian Wood is exactly the kind of stretch big man teams are looking for in the NBA today.
