This is a story about a man for whom I have been trying to suppress my love for some time. The Detroit Pistons have a new bad boy. His name: Christian Wood.

You’re late to the coming-out party

The above highlights are from the Pistons’ most recent game – a 114-107 loss to Oklahoma City – where Wood set a new career-high with 29 points. But that can hardly be considered his coming-out party. He purchased a piece of real estate in my heart in the preseason, and was the only Pistons player to receive the prestigious honor of an “A” grade in my early-season report card. I printed it out and hung it on my fridge, right on top of my daughter’s geology quiz (the kid needs to learn a thing or two about continental drift). He has been filling up the stat sheet on a nightly basis since then, particularly since the Andre Drummond trade one month ago. The Drummond deal has paved the way for increased playing time for my boy, and he has been putting on an absolute show.

About that last month…how about we stay there for a moment and go rapid-fire with some good old-fashioned box score breakdowns?

Wood has scored at least 17 points in every game but one in the past calendar month and has pulled down at least eight rebounds in…wait for it…every single game. He’s currently on a seven-game block streak. He’s made at least one three-pointer in 13 of the last 14 games, including a career-high five against OKC (they look real purrrty too). He has even mixed in four turnover-free games in the past month. Uber-aggressive, yet rarely out of control. Quite simply, he is a beautiful man playing beautiful basketball.

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We’ve seen big men in this town fill-up box scores before, but it hasn’t always translated to a whole lot of effective basketball (who could I be referring to?). Is this another chronic case of empty stats-itis? Let’s dig deeper…

While the Pistons have only won two games since February 5th (both against Phoenix), Christian Wood has actually logged a positive plus/minus in 6 out of the 11 games played in that span. In a recent 107-104 loss in Portland, Wood notched a +17 – better than any Blazer that night (the team that won) – to the tune of 26 PTS, 9 REB, 2 BLK and 0 TOs across 31 minutes. He has finished with an even-or-positive point differential in 32 of the 59 games he has played in this season, which ain’t easy on a team that is 20-43 overall. The Pistons are 0-4 to the tune of a minus-56 in the four games Wood has not played this season.

Take a trip in the way-back machine to December 1st, when Wood crammed a +32 into 22 action-packed minutes against San Antonio. 

Perhaps telling a story though box scores and traditional plus/minus doesn’t do it for you. You’d be wise to question those numbers, as the data can get a wee bit noisy with all of the other factors involved (teammates, opponents, game context, etc.). This is the age of analytics, after all. We can do better than this, right? Does science tell us C-Wood is any good? Lets put on our lab coats.

Nate Silver and the fine folks at FiveThirtyEight have developed a statistic called RAPTOR, which they are billing as the “New metric for the modern-NBA”. You can check out the deets here, but the gist is it’s a combination of a whole lot of stuff that should indicate who’s good at basketball and who ain’t. Traditional stats, on/off-court ratings, and player-tracking data were combined to create their most descriptive statistic to date. 

So who are the names the mother brain is spitting out as being the leaders in terms of RAPTOR this season (minimum 1000 minutes)? You’ve probably heard of them. The top-five reads like a hall-of-fame ballot: Harden-Antetokounmpo-Leonard-James-Doncic. Yeah, they’re OK. In fact, 14 of the top-15 in this metric were 2020 all-stars, with the only exception being Karl-Anthony Towns, who is a freak in his own right. So, despite it still being in an incubation stage, RAPTOR appears to be pretty damn good at identifying the best players in the NBA. 

Where does Christian Wood rank in all this? How does No. 16 sound? One spot ahead of Joel Embiid, 90 spots ahead of the next highest Piston (Derrick Rose) and 134 spots ahead of Andre Drummond (goooooooo Cavs!). 

As if that weren’t impressive enough, the RAPTOR developers admit some of the limitations of the metric include the fact that it “does not account for coaching, systems or synergies between teammates”. All of these factors are arguably working against Wood. He is playing in his first year in Detroit, has a new head coach in Dwane Casey, and plays on a team that ranks third in the NBA in missed games due to injury and first in unique starting lineup configurations. 

I think it fair to wonder if, as good as he’s been, Wood could have been even better with more stability surrounding him this season. That’s a scary proposition. Although all of that volatility was required for Wood to be the featured player on a now-rebuilding team. 

But enough data crunching and algorithms. That stuff is for nerds. You wanna know how I know C-Wood is a bad boy? Cuz he’ll shit on you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Show em’ young fella!

This is the type of stuff you will see on a nightly basis if you tune in to a ‘Stones game these days. The guy bombs treys and posterizes fools, and is damn good at both. Don’t be fooled by his slender frame. He has the strength to match his length, which makes him extremely difficult to stop near the basket or bother out on the perimeter. Despite being the same height, Drummond has a nearly 70 lb (!) weight advantage over Wood but could only dream of playing with this type of aggression and power. Current Pistons center Thon Maker has even better length and a good motor to match, but a mild spring breeze can send him flying into the mezzanine section like he was shot out of a t-shirt cannon.

Make no mistake, there are questions and concerns here. Like why Wood is now on his fifth NBA team, despite being just 24-years-old? Or how a player with his skillset can go undrafted out of UNLV? Why Wood barely edged-out the corpse of Joe Johnson just to make the opening roster? And most importantly, just how much slaw Detroit will have to throw his way to keep him around beyond this season? But those are issues for another day. “The Bright Side” isn’t about questioning the past or worrying about the future. It’s about appreciating what you have and making the most out of the present.

Christian Wood is a prototype modern-NBA big man, with a mouth-watering blend of athleticism and skill. The analytics love him. I love him. And if you haven’t tuned in lately, give the Detroit Pistons a watch. You will love him too.

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