Thunder Notes: SGA, Defense, Wiggins, Williams, Bench
Ahead of Wednesday evening’s MVP announcement, two of the three finalists for the award faced off in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, with Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander outdueling Luka Doncic of the Mavericks, writes Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
Doncic, who is still battling a knee sprain, struggled to score efficiently against a Thunder defensive attack led by Luguentz Dort, making just 6-of-19 field goal attempts. Gilgeous-Alexander, meanwhile, racked up 29 points and nine assists and was a game-high +21 in OKC’s 22-point victory.
As Slater notes, neither Gilgeous-Alexander nor Doncic is expected to win this year’s Most Valuable Player award, given that Nikola Jokic is the heavy favorite. But even if Jokic wins, as expected, it’s an open question which star guard will finish as the runner-up. For his part, Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t make it sound as if he’s been eagerly anticipating Wednesday’s announcement.
“If I’m at home (I’ll watch),” Gilgeous-Alexander said, per Slater. “I didn’t know it was (Wednesday).”
Here’s more on the Thunder:
- Through five playoff contests, the Thunder have allowed just 90.6 points per game, the lowest mark by any team through five games since the 2016 Spurs, writes Tim MacMahon of ESPN. “It’s where we hang our hat every night,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of the Thunder’s defense. “Especially this late in the season, we know that if we want to win basketball games, that it’s gonna start on that end. Obviously we have some really talented players on that end of the floor, but we also like to do it together and not just rely on those guys.” Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving described OKC’s “endless amount of energy” as an obstacle Dallas will have to overcome to have a chance in the series, MacMahon adds.
- The Thunder showed off their depth in Tuesday’s victory, according to Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman. Led by Aaron Wiggins (16 points) and Jaylin Williams (11 points, nine rebounds), Oklahoma City’s bench outscored Dallas’ by a 42-23 margin. Many of the Thunder’s key reserves are on team-friendly deals for next season — Williams is under contract for the minimum, while OKC holds minimum-salary team options on Wiggins and Isaiah Joe.
- The Thunder haven’t necessarily been viewed as a legitimate title threat due to their youth and lack of playoff experience, as well as their lack of size and rebounding, but each one of their postseason wins serves as evidence that those perceived weaknesses might not matter much, says Zach Kram of The Ringer. As Kram details, Oklahoma City led the NBA in several statistical categories, including three-point percentage, transition scoring, and turnovers forced, and was the only team besides Boston to rank in the top five in the league in both offensive and defensive rating. It’s true that no team this young has ever won a title, but no team as young as the current Thunder has ever been this good, Kram argues.
And-Ones: Nunn, Ojeleye, Media Rights, Carter-Williams
After making the move from the NBA to Europe in 2023, Kendrick Nunn has had a big year with Panathinaikos in Greece. In 45 total games in the Greek League and EuroLeague, the veteran guard has averaged 14.2 points, 3.4 assists, and 2.5 rebounds in 25.0 minutes per game, posting an impressive shooting line of .464/.421/.988. Nunn’s squad has won 21 of 22 Greek League games and ranks second in the EuroLeague with a 23-11 record.
Nunn’s impressive performance earned him a longer-term commitment from Panathinaikos, who have signed the former Heat, Lakers, and Wizards guard to a two-year extension through 2025/26.
The new deal, which was confirmed by Panathinaikos team owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos on Instagram, features NBA outs this year and next year, according to Stavros Barbarousis of Eurohoops, so Nunn will have a window to potentially return stateside if the right opportunity arises. Assuming he plays out the contract, he’ll earn about five million Euros across the next two seasons, per Barbarousis.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Another former NBA player, forward Semi Ojeleye, has finalized an extension with his European team, signing a new two-year deal with Valencia Basket, the Spanish team announced in a press release. Ojeleye, who appeared in 284 games for the Celtics, Bucks, and Clippers from 2017-22, played in Italy in 2022/23 before heading to Spain, where he has averaged 13.3 PPG and 4.4 RPG on .493/.471/.869 shooting in 27 EuroLeague contests for Valencia.
- Andrew Marchand of The Athletic provides an update on the NBA’s media rights negotiations, reporting that ESPN/ABC is expected to pay $2.6 billion per season to retain its broadcast rights to the league, while Amazon Prime Video will buy in at a rate of about $1.8 billion per year. With NBC hoping to replace TNT as an NBA partner and aggressively pursuing a deal believed to be in the range of $2.5MM annually, the league’s total media deal could be worth nearly $7 billion per season, a significant leap from its previous agreement, which was worth about $2.7 billion per year.
- Writing for The Players’ Tribune, veteran NBA guard Michael Carter-Williams explores the challenges that injuries, anxiety, and depression have posed thus far in his playing career and explains why he’s in a good place now, even though he has appeared in just four NBA games over the last three seasons.
Southeast Notes: Young, Adebayo, Heat, Kispert
As rumors continue to swirl about his future with the Hawks, Trae Young has changed agents, announcing (via Twitter) that he has signed with CAA Sports. He was previously represented by Klutch Sports.
Marc Stein reported last month that Young’s father Rayford Young recently became a certified NBA agent, but it’s unclear if Rayford will be part of his son’s group of reps at CAA.
A three-time All-Star, Young is coming off another strong statistical season, having averaged 25.7 points and a career-high 10.8 assists in 36.0 minutes per game across 54 starts for Atlanta. However, the Hawks have posted a sub-.500 record across the last three seasons and have only won three total playoff games during that stretch, so there’s an expectation that major changes are coming to the roster this summer, possibly affecting Young or backcourt mate Dejounte Murray.
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- After finishing third in Defensive Player of the Year voting, Bam Adebayo‘s last chance to meet the super-max performance criteria this spring is to claim a spot on one of the league’s three All-NBA teams, notes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. If he doesn’t earn All-NBA honors, the Heat big man will still be eligible for a very lucrative contract extension this summer, worth up to approximately $165MM over three years. However, a super-max deal would be worth significantly more than that ($245MM over four years), and Adebayo could still meet the criteria with an All-NBA nod or DPOY win in 2025, so there’s no guarantee he’ll pursue an extension this summer.
- Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald believes it’s time to consider a roster overhaul in Miami, arguing that the Heat‘s current core isn’t good enough to win a title and that the “root-canal offense” needs to change. Jackson suggests that the front office should seriously weigh the possibility of trading Jimmy Butler or making a “significant lateral move” if the team’s non-Butler and non-Adebayo assets aren’t enough to acquire a third star.
- While Deni Avdija‘s breakout performance received more attention, third-year Wizards wing Corey Kispert may have raised his long-term ceiling in 2023/24 by becoming more of a three-level scoring threat instead of just a three-point shooter, writes Bijan Todd of Monumental Sports Network. According to Todd, new Wizards general manager Will Dawkins and president Michael Winger spoke to Kispert before last season about expanding his game and getting to the rim more often. “[Attacking the rim] changed everything. It changed everything. It seemed like my first two years, if I put the ball on the floor, the other team was just cool with it. That’s what they wanted me to do,” Kispert said. “But now it felt a little bit different. It felt like there were multiple layers to what teams had to do to stop what I was trying to do. Just because I put the ball on the deck doesn’t mean the job’s done for the defense anymore.”
Draft Notes: G League Elite Camp, Carrington, Edwards, George
The NBA has officially announced the list of invitees for its 2024 G League Elite Camp, which will take place this weekend in Chicago. The 45-player list is made up of some of the top prospects who didn’t earn invites to next week’s draft combine, though the standout performers at the Elite Camp will be invited to stick around for the combine.
There are a few differences between the final list of participants and the initial 44-player list of invitees. After previously reporting that Johnell Davis had turned down his invitation while Jaylen Wells had been upgraded to a combine invite, Jonathan Givony of ESPN tweets that three more players from the original list won’t take part: Spanish big man Eli Ndiaye, former Wisconsin wing AJ Storr, and Arizona guard KJ Lewis.
Ndiaye’s season with Real Madrid is still in progress, which explains his absence. Storr appears to be focused on transferring to Kansas, while Givony speculates that Lewis may also end up withdrawing from the draft to return to Arizona.
With those five players not attending the Elite Camp, the NBA invited six more prospects to round out the 45-player field. Those final six invitees are USC guard Boogie Ellis, Alabama guard Aaron Estrada, Florida guard Zyon Pullin, North Florida guard Chaz Lanier, New Mexico guard Jaelen House, and Cairns Taipans (Australia) guard Taran Armstrong.
Here’s more on the 2024 NBA draft:
- In a story for HoopsHype, Michael Scotto looked at several prospects whose stock appears to be on the rise ahead of the combine, starting with Pittsburgh’s Carlton Carrington, who jumped 25 spots to No. 27 in HoopsHype’s latest aggregate mock draft. A number of NBA executives who spoke to Scotto believe Carrington could be selected in the 15-30 range. “I think he can handle the ball and has good size,” one exec said. “I don’t know if he can guard anybody on our level at his position. He didn’t showcase an ability to create shots for himself. He did a good job of passing the ball.”
- Kentucky’s Justin Edwards, who entered last season with lottery upside, saw his stock drop over the course of an up-and-down freshman season, but it has bounced back as of late, according to Scotto, who notes that Edwards is now widely viewed as a borderline first-round pick. “Edwards is a little older for a freshman (20) and isn’t the most in-shape guy,” one scout told Scotto. “There’s a Shabazz Muhammad comparison with Edwards that some people may not want to hear. When he’s on, there’s a Rodney Hood comparison to be made. He’s fine. I think you can win basketball games with him as a role player.”
- DaRon Holmes II (Dayton), Hunter Sallis (Wake Forest), Tristan Da Silva (Colorado), Trey Alexander (Creighton), and Kyshawn George (Miami) are among several other prospects identified by Scotto as trending up. “I think Kyshawn is pretty good,” a veteran scout told HoopsHype. “He’s young and skilled. He’s big at 6-foot-8, can shoot, and can handle it. He’s going to need some years, but you’d invest in him. I’d pick him higher than a lot of other guys because of his age. He’s impressed me.”
Southwest Notes: Doncic, T. Allen, Morant, Williamson
Mavericks guard Luka Doncic had three full days off between the end of the team’s first-round series against the Clippers and the start of the second-round matchup with Oklahoma City, but it looked like the right knee sprain he suffered early in the Clippers series was still bothering him on Tuesday.
As Tim MacMahon of ESPN details, Doncic made 1-of-8 three-pointers in Dallas’ Game 1 loss to the Thunder and has now hit just 5-of-35 threes in his past four contests. That’s the worst three-point percentage (14.3%) for any player who has at least 30 attempts over a four-game postseason run in NBA history, says MacMahon.
“It’s just hurting,” Doncic said of his knee, per Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News (subscription required). “Less mobility. Less explosiveness when I’m driving the ball. But it’s about the same. These days gave me a little more time to rest, a little more time to rehab.”
Asked specifically about how big a part his knee issues are playing in his shooting struggles, Doncic declined to speculate, telling reporters that bouncing back from the Mavericks’ fifth consecutive Game 1 loss is his focus.
“Who cares? We lost,” he said. “We’ve just got to move on to the next one. I’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be better. We’re known for Game 1-struggling, but we’ve got to focus.”
Here’s more from around the Southwest:
- The Grizzlies are expected to retire Tony Allen‘s No. 9 jersey during the 2024/25 season, the former defensive standout tells Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. Memphis had originally planned to retire Allen’s number during the 2021/22 season, according to Cole, but the veteran guard asked the team to postpone it due to his legal issues. Allen will join former teammates Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph among Grizzlies players with their jerseys retired. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “Hopefully, I have a box of tissue with me.”
- NBA commissioner Adam Silver provided a favorable update on Grizzlies guard Ja Morant on Monday, according to Cole. Silver had “regular check-ins” with Morant over the course of the year, which was one of the conditions attached to his 25-game suspension for multiple off-court incidents. “From everything we have seen, his development has been very positive,” Silver said. “Working with the team and his personal management, having a stronger support team around him seems to be making a difference in his life.”
- A federal appeals court has upheld a 2021 ruling in favor of Zion Williamson, according to an Associated Press report, determining that the Pelicans forward’s contract with a marketing agent was void because she wasn’t licensed in North Carolina at the time of the agreement. Gina Ford, a Florida-based agent, had been seeking $100MM from Williamson, accusing him of improperly breaking a contract allowing her to represent him for endorsement purposes.
Magic Notes: First-Round Loss, Wagner, Offseason, Cap Room
After blowing a Game 7 lead in Cleveland on Sunday in a game that ended their season, the Magic went home disappointed, but viewed the loss with a mature, even-keeled perspective, as Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel writes.
“It doesn’t define us,” said second-year forward Paolo Banchero, who averaged a team-high 27.0 points per game in the seven-game series. “This is our first time in the playoffs. I’m just proud of how we played, and I know we’ll be back.”
“I walked in the locker room, and I said, ‘It sucks,'” head coach Jamahl Mosley told reporters, including Josh Robbins of The Athletic. “It does — not to get the game, knowing what you were capable of doing, to be up 18, to feel you (had) a chance to close out and not get it done. It doesn’t feel good. And, then in the same breath, you have to put it all into perspective. Sometimes these painful things are blessings in disguise.”
The Magic had missed the playoffs for three straight seasons prior to 2023/24 and this year’s young team – led by Banchero and third-year forward Franz Wagner – was considered unlikely to make a deep postseason run. So the fact that Orlando took the Cavaliers to seven games and outplayed them for much of the series should be viewed as a positive development rather than a letdown that the team didn’t go further. The Magic’s players said they intend to build off the experience.
“We won’t be walking into next season’s playoffs and have people questioning our ability to have done it before,” Jonathan Isaac said. “We took a good team to a Game 7 and we’ll be able to have that chip on our shoulder leading into next season.”
“This was a great year,” Cole Anthony added, according to Matt Murschel of The Orlando Sentinel (subscription required). “We set goals and accomplished our goals. Was it the outcome that we wanted? Obviously not, but we’ve got to look at the positives. We’ve got to take those and build on top of that for the summer and into next season.”
Here’s more on the Magic:
- It was a brutal Game 7 on Sunday for Wagner, who scored just six points on 1-of-15 shooting and missed all five of his three-point attempts. He took the loss hard and said he felt like he “let my team down a little bit,” according to Robbins, but Banchero came to his teammate’s defense. “We’re not here without Franz,” Banchero said (Twitter link via Beede). “… He’s going to have a great summer. He’s going to get better. Just knowing him, I know he’s going to use this to motivate him and take it to another level. I don’t think he let anybody down. Sometimes it happens.”
- Armed with a significant chunk of cap room, how can the Magic continue to improve this summer? ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Insider link), Mark Deeks of HoopsHype, and Robbins and Danny Leroux of The Athletic each explore that topic, previewing the offseason in Orlando. While adding shooting is a priority, the Magic could also use a facilitator who can create easier shots for Banchero and Wagner, Marks writes. Additionally, the team faces important decisions on the non-guaranteed salaries of Isaac ($17.4MM) and Joe Ingles ($11MM) — letting go of one or both players, perhaps in an effort to try to bring them back at a lower price, would substantially increase Orlando’s cap room.
- Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman didn’t offer many hints about how the team intends to use its cap room this summer, suggesting that it could be used in trades or on draft night as well as in free agency, per Murschel of The Orlando Sentinel (subscription required). The goal is to use it “wisely and with future planning in mind,” according to Weltman, who indicated there are at least three cornerstone players Orlando intends to build around. “We don’t want to lose the North Star of our team, which is our three leading scorers (Banchero, Wagner and Jalen Suggs) who are 22 and under,” said Weltman. “A lot of good things happened to our team this year. Now it’s up to us to earn our way into repeating that.”
Pacific Notes: Suns’ Stars, Vogel, Kings, A. Davis
While there has been some speculation that the Suns will break up their big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal this summer following a disappointing first-round playoff exit, Brian Windhorst of ESPN doesn’t get the sense the team is seriously considering taking that path. In an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show (YouTube link), Windhorst said he expects all three stars to remain in Phoenix.
“Do people in the league say (the Suns will have to trade a star)? Yes, they do,” Windhorst said (hat tip to RealGM). “I’ve talked to multiple people who think that’s what they’re going to have to do. Do the Suns say that? No, they do not. I think the Suns’ intention is to keep all three of these star players, tweak the roster, tweak some of their systems and their processes, and try to be better next year.”
As Windhorst notes, the Suns’ approach to the offseason could change if one of their stars asked to be traded, but there was no indication in their end-of-season comments to the media that any of them is looking to get out of Phoenix. In fact, Durant and Booker expressed a belief in the value of continuity.
“Not that he is sworn to telling the whole truth all the time (but) Durant when he left basically said, ‘I think continuity is valuable,'” Windhorst said. “He was looking at the Timberwolves team that had basically brought their entire team back from last year and he was like, ‘That continuity is pretty important there.'”
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- A decision on the future of Suns head coach Frank Vogel is expected to happen “soon,” sources tell Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. Team owner Mat Ishbia essentially said as much when he spoke to reporters last Wednesday, indicating that the club would conduct an in-depth evaluation of its season, including Vogel’s performance, before making any decisions. It sounds like that evaluation process is almost complete.
- While the NBA’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement will make it more difficult for taxpaying teams like Phoenix to make roster upgrades, it could actually benefit the Kings, according to James Ham of The Kings Beat. As Ham details, the new CBA gives teams that are under the tax aprons more trade flexibility, since they’re subject to more lenient salary-matching rules and – beginning this offseason – are permitted to use their mid-level exception to acquire players via trade.
- Appearing on ESPN’s SportsCenter (Twitter video link) over the weekend, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin said that Lakers star Anthony Davis will have a voice in the team’s head coaching search (hat tip to Lakers Nation). “Of course LeBron James’ opinion will be taken into consideration, but not just LeBron James — Anthony Davis as well, I’m told,” McMenamin said. “The team kind of looks at Anthony Davis as finally taking the torch from LeBron in the last season-and-a-half. While LeBron can still have the time to process the end of this season as he decides his future with the team, they have another voice and another leader in Anthony Davis, whose opinion they will take under consideration.”
Community Shootaround: Celtics/Cavaliers Series
No second-round series in the this year’s NBA playoffs is viewed as more one-sided than Celtics vs. Cavaliers. Ahead of Game 1 on Tuesday, betting site BetOnline.ag has made Boston a -2000 favorite to advance, listing Cleveland at +1000 to pull off the upset.
Based on what we’ve seen this season from Boston, those odds don’t come as a major surprise. At 64-18, the Celtics won seven more games than any other team in the NBA and 14 more than any Eastern Conference rival. They put up the third-best net rating in NBA history (+11.7), finishing with the league’s top offensive rating (122.2) and second-best defensive rating (110.6).
In Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, and Kristaps Porzingis, the Celtics have a starting lineup full of two-way impact players, with no weak links on either end of the floor. And while they’re not exactly loaded with depth, the first few players off their bench – Al Horford, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser – all made positive contributions this season.
The Celtics experienced a minor hiccup in round one, losing Game 2 at home to a Miami team that was missing star forward Jimmy Butler, but they bounced back admirably with dominant victories in Games 3, 4, and 5, holding the Heat to between 84 and 88 points in each of those contests to close out the series in convincing fashion.
The Cavaliers, on the other hand, had a middle-of-the-pack net rating this season (their +2.5 mark ranked 12th in the league), and their 48-34 record was buoyed by 17-1 run in January and February. They went 13-18 to close the regular season and then needed seven games to get past an Orlando team that outscored them overall.
Donovan Mitchell was excellent in that first-round series, averaging 28.7 points per game, but he’s still dealing with a leg injury and the Cavs struggled to get much secondary offense going against the Magic, with Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, Caris LeVert, and Max Strus all scoring well below their regular season averages.
It doesn’t help matters that the team has been missing starting center Jarrett Allen, who has been out for the last three games due to a rib contusion, and Dean Wade, a rotation forward who likely would have been playing regular minutes in the playoffs.
On paper, it looks like a one-sided matchup, but there are a few arguments against penciling in the Celtics for a sweep. For one, they’re missing Porzingis, who may remain on the shelf for the entire second round while he recovers from a calf strain. They can slot Horford into Porzingis’ starting spot, but he’s not as dynamic an offensive player, and it will mean relying more on reserves who barely played in the first round, such as Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman.
The Cavaliers also played the Celtics competitively during the regular season, with all three games between the two teams decided by single-digits. Cleveland lost a pair of contests in Boston, but beat the C’s at home in March. That victory should give the Cavs a little confidence entering Game 1, as should the fact that they were able to get a monkey off their back by winning a playoff series this spring after a disappointing showing in 2023 — that could remove some pressure entering round two.
The Celtics have their own playoff demons to reckon with. They lost the Eastern Conference finals to the Heat last spring as heavy favorites and are in championship-or-bust mode this year after falling short with rosters led by Tatum and Brown for the past several seasons. A second-round loss would be a disaster for the franchise, so if they hit another snag like they did in Game 2 vs. Miami last round, they’ll have to respond like they did against the Heat and not let the Cavs start to get comfortable.
We want to know what you think. Will the Celtics have any problems against the Cavs or do you expect Boston to advance without too much trouble? Is there any chance of a Cleveland upset? Are the Celtics bound for the NBA Finals?
Head to the comment section below to share your thoughts and predictions!
Eastern Notes: Wade, Allen, J. Brown, Claxton, Bucks
Cavaliers forward Dean Wade, who continues to recover from a right knee injury, hasn’t played since March 8, but it’s possible he’ll return to action at some point in the Eastern Conference semifinals, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (subscription required). Sources tell Fedor that there’s hope Wade will be able to play later in the series, possibly as early as Game 3 or 4 in Cleveland.
Wade is ramping up his on-court activity, having conducted an individual workout on Monday and then doing some light shooting and conditioning work at Tuesday’s shootaround, according to Fedor. His availability later in the series will depend on how his knee responds to the increase in activity.
After averaging a modest 5.4 points per game in 54 regular season appearances, Wade likely won’t be a difference-maker in the series vs. Boston. However, as Fedor observes, the Cavs haven’t gotten much this postseason from Georges Niang, who has made just 6-of-29 (20.7%) shots in six games and has nearly as many fouls (15) as points (17). Having another frontcourt option available off the bench could come in handy for Cleveland.
The presence of another power forward in the rotation would be even more crucial if center Jarrett Allen remains sidelined. Allen, who missed the final three games of the Cavs’ first-round series vs. Orlando, is listed as questionable to play in Game 1 on Tuesday.
Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- Celtics wing Jaylen Brown spoke back in the fall about wanting to take on more challenging defensive assignments and play at an All-Defensive level in 2023/24, and he has delivered on that promise, according to Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston, who says that Brown will likely “draw a heavy dose” of Donovan Mitchell in the second-round series vs. Cleveland. “He’s picking up point guards, he guards bigs,” teammate Derrick White said of Brown. “Just an athletic freak. He can guard so many different positions and he just really bought in this year. I think he was a good defender before the season but just taking it to that next level, just consistently night in, night out, and wanting those challenges. Taking on those challenges and stepping up big time.”
- Within a look at the Nets‘ upcoming offseason, Lucas Kaplan of NetsDaily cites sources who say Brooklyn remains “very confident” in its ability to re-sign unrestricted free agent Nic Claxton, even if his price is in the neighborhood of $25MM per year.
- Adding athleticism to their roster figures to be a priority for the Bucks ahead of the 2024/25 season, according to Eric Nehm of The Athletic, who notes that the team will also benefit from many of its key pieces having their first full offseason together — Damian Lillard was acquired just ahead of training camp last fall, while Doc Rivers was hired in January. “I told Giannis (Antetokounmpo) and Dame I’m going to send them things all summer we’re working on for them to work on,” Rivers said. “And they both were very excited about that. I’m assuming Khris (Middleton) will like the same thing. That gives us an advantage.”
Lakers’ Christian Wood Opts In For 2024/25
Lakers big man Christian Wood has exercised his player option for 2024/25, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). The move guarantees Wood’s $3,036,040 salary for next season, postponing his free agency until 2025.
Wood, 28, remained on the free agent market for over two months last summer despite averaging 16.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 25.9 minutes per game across 67 appearances for Dallas in 2022/23. He eventually signed a two-year, minimum-salary contract with the Lakers that featured a player option on the second season.
Wood played a limited role in Los Angeles, averaging 6.9 PPG and 5.1 RPG in 50 games (17.4 MPG). His shooting percentages – 46.6% from the floor and 30.7% on three-pointers – were both well below his career rates and his season came to an early end when he was sidelined by a left knee injury in February that forced him to undergo arthroscopic surgery in March.
The veteran forward/center was technically cleared to play in the final two games of L.A.’s first-round series vs. Denver, but the club opted not to use him after such a long layoff.
Given how much trouble he had finding a favorable deal in free agency a year ago, it’s no surprise that Wood opted into the second year of his existing contract after a down season that ended with a major injury. His option decision doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be back in Los Angeles for ’24/25, since he could be a trade candidate this offseason.
Wood is the second player to pick up a player option this spring, joining Bulls guard Lonzo Ball. The full list of pending player option decisions – which features four more Lakers, including LeBron James – can be found right here.