The Charlotte Hornets have struggled with their power forward position for the past few seasons. It’s safe to say that the team gave up too early on Christian Wood.
In recent seasons, the Charlotte Hornets have not received a lot of production from their current starter Marvin Williams. Over the years Charlotte has had some young talent to back up Williams, but one of those particular players had potential.
With much hindsight, the Hornets gave up too early on the young power forward Christian Wood. So far in his NBA career, Wood has played for four different NBA teams; his current team is the New Orleans Pelicans.
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In 2015, Wood went undrafted in the NBA draft, which is what led to him being signed by the Philadelphia 76ers. After a non-productive rookie year, he would later be signed by Hornets in the 2016 offseason.
Wood only played in thirteen games with the Hornets, and he averaged 2.7 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. He spent a lot of his time with the Greensboro Swarm that season when he was with the Hornets. He would be released following his one season in Charlotte.
After being let go by Charlotte and not playing in the 2017-18 season, he would start the 2018-19 season with the Milwaukee Bucks. He only averaged 2.8 points per game with the Bucks before being apart of a trade to acquire Nikola Mirotić from the Pelicans.
When he was traded to New Orleans Wood received a significant amount of playing time because of the Anthony Davis controversy the team was dealing with. In just eight games with the Pelicans, Wood averaged 16.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
Last season was a huge stepping stone for his career, and a lot of it had to do with the amount of playing time he got. Of course, the G-League had to do a lot with his development as well.
I know it’s a stretch when I say Charlotte gave up on him to early, but he really proved a lot of people wrong with his play last season. Wood had three games last season where he scored 23+ points in them for New Orleans.
For a 23-year-old power forward, this is impressive. If Wood would have stayed in Charlotte, I think he could have developed well under Marvin Williams and Coach Steve Clifford.
Wood should continue to develop nicely while he will get to play with players like Zion Williamson and Derrick Favors. Do you think Wood would have developed into the player he is today with Charlotte?
Wood is set to have a huge role with the Pelicans next season, as they lost Julius Randle and Anthony Davis. I think he’s going to have a huge season, and he will continue to prove to his former teams why they should’ve kept him.