Christian Wood
In college, Christian Wood was criticized for his poor shot selection as a 6’11” power forward, but the big man will need to be able to spread the floor as a stretch-four since he’s particularly lanky and probably couldn’t stick with most NBA centers on the defensive end.
That area of his game will need some work, however, since he shot 28.4 percent from downtown on 2.7 attempts per game last season, but Wood seems confident in his ability to expand his range.
“It’s great,” he said. “That’s something that I had to show Phoenix, that I could shoot the three and it’s something that I’ve been working on.”
As a 19-year-old coming off his sophomore season with the Runnin’ Rebels, Wood has plenty of time to do so. Being able to develop into a stretch-four is likely how he’ll find minutes at the next level, even though it probably won’t be with the Phoenix Suns, who have a plethora of superior options available in that category.
“That’s what’s happening in the NBA right now, there’s more stretch-fours like Draymond Green, LaMarcus Aldridge, Serge Ibaka, Anthony Davis, you know, guys like that that can stretch the floor out for you and I think that’s what’s happened to the league,” he said. “There are no more traditional bigs in the league.”
Wood averaged 15.7 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game while shooting 49.7 percent from the field in his last collegiate season. He’s projected to go somewhere late in the first round.
Next: Delon Wright