Knicks interested in Christian Wood

Shoo, pandemic! Get lost! There’s a minor amount of Knicks news to discuss. According to Ian Begley, the Knicks’ front office, or whatever’s left of it, has expressed an interest in NBA COVID-19, Patient 3, Christian Wood. The 24-year old skinny big man was finally getting his runway to All-Stardom before the season was lopped off by the virus.

As it sits right now, the Pistons would be able to offer Wood the most cashola with Early Bird Rights. The Knicks might be able to worry them with a scary enough offer. As it stands right now Detroit has 8 players under contract for next year. Only Blake Griffin makes a cap concerning amount. The reason moving Andre Drummond and his $30m player option was so important to the Pistons was absolutely so they could give a handsome deal and solid role to Wood.

The Knicks would have to offer a boatload, which they could, but that could hamper them down the line. Nevertheless, Wood could represent a nice improvement on the current minutes New York is getting from Bobby Portis. Over the season it looks fairly even.

Source: NBA.com

In roughly the same minutes, Portis really only takes and makes more threes (barely) and his assist numbers are a touch healthier. Here’s the thing though, that doesn’t exactly take into account the time where Wood was buried behind Drummond because when you take a look at February, suddenly...

So ya know, how would you prefer the Knicks spend their money? Taj Gibson and Bobby Portis make about $25m combined next year if the Knicks accept their team options. You could just decline them and put all that money in Wood’s pot. Of course this would make Christian Wood the highest paid player on the Knicks, and that would freak people out.

The trick there is that the Knicks could still throw a max offer at Brandon Ingram possibly. Then maybe there is another option that costs almost nothing to fill out the forward rotation. Perhaps Kyle O’Quinn wants to come back to fill the real New Yorker quota.

Christian Wood, hmm... Makes ya think.