The Pistons, before this game, had not notched a victory in the post-Drummond era. The era, to this point, was marked by Christian Wood starting, and putting up huge numbers, but the Pistons losing anyway.
That’s kind of been the question with Wood. He’s a fine player, but can he contribute to a winning team? He put up monster stats with the Pelicans at the end of last year while losing, and now the story is repeating itself in Detroit. The team that had him while being successful, the Bucks, duct-taped him to the end of the bench and only released him when the lead grew to at least 25 in the fourth quarter.
Normally all of this would give me pause, but I’ve seen enough of Wood by this point to know that he could be a big contributor on a playoff team. Maybe not the reason that team was in the playoffs, but a contributor. It’s not his fault that the Pistons imploded this year and can barely win a game. In fact, if he wasn’t around, I’d estimate they’d have 5 (or more) fewer wins. They certainly wouldn’t have won this game. That’s the kind of impact he has.
I really miss him on the Bucks, there’s no way he wouldn’t be way more useful that Ersan Ilyasova this point. Seeing him go at it with Giannis in their last matchup made me sad. Why did we have to separate Giannis from Giannis 0.7 with a real jumper (which is Wood, in case you’re a a little slow)?