Sigh… the Bucks give up on another promising young player. Shades of Tobias Harris (but not Thon Maker). They had this guy, this “Christian Wood” for months and months, and aside from a token attempt to get him going early, he rode the pine for nearly that entire time. When he’d go down to the G-League, he’d dominate. Utterly dominate. He was like Giannis down there, except if Giannis was way WAY more aggressive trying to score the ball as well as doing everything else. I think he’s currently the second best scorer per game in the G-League (he was at one point, and I’m too lazy to check), but after what transpired tonight, he’s not going to get sent down again.
Sure, the Bucks are a playoff team, a championship contender maybe, so you could say they just didn’t have the minutes to develop Wood. I’m not buying it, because from his stats in the G-League and now his stats in this game, he doesn’t need any developing. He’s good to go. The other explanation I heard that makes a little more sense is that he is just not a team player, and wasn’t ever going to work in Budenholzer’s “everybody eats except Giannis gets double servings” offense. Why the Bucks would bother keeping him around in that case, I have no idea. At least trade him or something.
Well, now he’s free. Free from the chains of being on the best team in the league, free from a coaching staff that seemingly had no interest in turning him into an NBA player. I was sad to see him go, because I’ve always kinda liked him and he was obviously talented, but now I’m happy to see him in a new situation.
This was, simply put, an insane performance from him. It would’ve been better if this was his debut, but his real 7-point debut went unnoticed. This one, he’s making us all take notice. 23 points, career high. 9 rebounds, career high. 6 blocks, career high. He could’ve had a 30-burger if he could make free throws. He was playing with FURY out there. I always say Montrezl Harrell plays with the most fury in the league, but this was right up there. He drew two flagrant fouls in addition to all his other heroics. John Collins was getting supremely flustered out there, fouling himself out of the game bodychecking Wood, and the Hawks as a whole seemed to have no idea what to do with him. This white-hot bundle of limitless energy wasn’t in their scouting report.