THE CRUCIFIX: Cato: Wood isn't thrilled w/ his role...Will depart in the summer

[DanSchwartzgan]

Wood got 17 minutes in the one point loss to Denver. Media and Twitter went nuts: Why is Wood not playing?!

Since then, over the last 5 games, Wood has averaged 30 minutes and "Dallas is 1-4 and 3rd worst defensive team in the NBA, allowing 121.3 per 100 possessions. Detroit is really bad, struggled to defend basic sets in first half, but Dallas 61 first half point, or what would be 122 def rtg." (Iztok) and Wood is -41 plus/minus.

To expand on this, there have been six games where Wood got 28 minutes or more.  Dallas is 0-6.  To be fair, two of those losses came against Boston and Milwaukee.  But, four were the Detroit, Houston and OKC humiliations and one was the NOP loss where they were missing Ingram, Herb Jones and Zion.  Coincidence or Causation (or a little of both?).

The D seemed more together yesterday holding a Knicks team to 14 points under their average and 82 basis points under their normal FG% (.455 vs .537).  Again, to be fair, Dallas really struggled offensively against Orlando and Washington the other two times Wood didn't play.  The sample size is way too small to draw conclusions, but I would infer from Iztok's numbers and the results that there is a point where too much Wood isn't a good thing.  Flashy numbers offensively, yes.  But half of a basketball game is played at the other end.  Kidd does everything he can to hide Wood against backups and even then playing alongside a defensive minded big in Maxi who takes the more difficult assignment.  But, that only works for so many minutes.  Once that threshold is crossed, Wood is playing against starters or without Maxi or both and it 'appears' it is a bad formula.  

The better formula?  In the 14 games Wood has played 20-29 minutes (and this includes two of the bad games above), the team is +4.3.  Having a 15/7 guy off your bench who hits 40% of his 3's and 55% of his FG's isn't a bad thing.