Christian Wood
Christian Wood was let go by the Milwaukee Bucks right before they began their march to the NBA Finals, which they’ve made to look relatively easy so far after sweeping an extremely overmatched Pistons team – setting up a tantalizing matchup against the Boston Celtics.
But anyway, we’re talking about Wood’s time spent with the New Orleans Pelicans rather than the Bucks, as after he was waived, the Pels picked him up and Wood sort of took of – including a bruising career-best performance against the Atlanta Hawks late in the season (that, admittedly, caught this writer’s attention):
Though Wood played in only 8 games with the Pels to end the year, he produced some striking numbers: 16.9 points per game, 7.9 rebounds per game, 1.3 blocks per game, 0.9 steals per game and 0.8 assists per game – pretty good for a player that was let go in favor of a soon-to-be injured Pau Gasol on the Bucks.
Wood played solid defense with the Pels without fouling, both protecting the rim and roaming around inside the paint to try and blow up plays. Per Cleaning the Glass, Wood was only one of three Pelicans players who was in the 80th percentile or higher for steal rate, block rate and foul rate on the team.
Fouling less is certainly something the Atlanta Hawks could do more of, as Dewayne Dedmon, Alex Len and John Collins were all quite foul-prone throughout 2018-19.