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

[KillerLeft]

Absolutely.  I was super hopeful about Wood when he was acquired.  I was right about the role I thought he would get, at least initially.  I never anticipated he would require the level of protection Kidd gives him.  

If you think Wood has more value than he's shown (and I do hold that out as a possibility), then there are two ways to unlock it.  Throw him to the wolves and let him start and get 32-ish minutes.  Or, bring him along slowly and build his confidence and his ability to do things he's not done successfully before.  This summer I said "let him earn it" and someone said that should be my signature.  For the record I much prefer "#1 Green Defender".  But "earn" it might not have been the best way to phrase it.  Maybe "let him develop it" would have been better.  

There are risks to both scenarios.  In the latter, people might think  the coach is an idiot, but at least the box score numbers look good and you have a trade asset.  If you throw him to the wolves and it doesn't work, you may be able to change back to a bench role, but you have certainly killed his trade value by killing the dream that he could ever start successfully on a good team.  BTW, I do think he has value in a limited role.  The question that we can't answer with certainty yet is whether he has value in an expanded role.

It's all just fan impatience, but I think what's frustrating me is that the "bring him along slowly" thing, while reasonable, A) isn't guaranteed to teach him any more than "throw him to the wolves" and B) it doesn't seem to be resulting in good play from the team in the meantime, because they actually need someone like Wood in a high-minute role (competently, so maybe not Wood, specifically) to be a good team. 

If they're losing, anyway, why not crash course him and pray? 

I know they just won a game without him playing at all, and that there's reason to draw conclusions from that because yes, that was one of the better performances of the season in some ways, but I can't imagine going back to having just Powell and Kleber in the rotation as bigs. Mix in the Powell/Dinwiddie thing with my wish to use Dinwiddie as a 6th man and it's tough for me to see how this all Works without Wood getting there.