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

[Dundalis]

Yep. It looks like the alternatives were awful, and it was just empty numbers in a going-nowhere 20-46 season. For the season, DET was -180 in the 62 games Wood played.

Back to this season, I was very encouraged by Wood's performance against HOU because it felt like for much of the game he played with effort and intensity on defense. His stats didn't look great, but I think his value will only come when he adds defense, rather than merely giving effort on offense. That was a game where, even though he wasn't scoring much, it felt like he really contributed at times. In that, I see light on the horizon.

There's pretty damn good value in what he's doing offensively regardless of anything else. The number of players putting up 38% on 4 or more 3pt attempts, and 63% TS on over 11 FG attempts per game is a very very small list. In fact only 5 other players in the NBA have offensive numbers as good or better, mainly out and out NBA superstars. I haven't seen him not give defensive effort the entire season either. Him missing assignments or being in the wrong position isn't not giving effort. He will never be a good man on man defender, but his weakside shot blocking threat has always been there, and he's the best rebounder on the team.

Regardless of what he does on defense, we are not likely to acquire another player on Luka's contract who can give what Wood can as a scorer IMO. And we haven't even really utilised him properly yet to fully exploit his offensive abilities.