Lakers 2024-2025 Player Preview: Christian Wood
The Lakers have completed their preseason slate, with the last two games being an OT thriller against Phoenix and a blowout from Golden State. In these games, it’s been refreshing to see the best being brought out of many players who didn’t perform how they would have hoped last season.
One guy that many Lakers fans were heavily anticipating to see similar results from was Christian Wood.
Much of the hype surrounding Christian Wood’s return was his own doing. This past offseason, Wood shared a message on his Instagram story that read: “I’m back y’all…and I’m coming back next season with a vengeance.”
Christian Wood on his instagram story 👀👀 pic.twitter.com/wYi0CpxfYR
— ADHD (@ADHDGoat) August 24, 2024
This spurred many among Lakers faithful to envision a version of Christian Wood similar to what we saw in Houston. In his time with the Rockets, a healthy Wood averaged 20/10/2 and shot 51% from the field. He also displayed his ability to space the floor, shooting 38% from beyond the arc.
That was the player many anticipated seeing. That is until the news came out that Wood would undergo another knee surgery at the end of the offseason. He had his first surgery towards the end of last season on the same knee that was recently repaired.
According to Dr. Rajpal Brar, it is not uncommon when going in for an initial scope on a knee to require another scope later down the line in the ramp-up process. Nonetheless, the disappointment rings true.
2024-25 Expectations for Christian Wood
Wood looked tremendous in his limited time on the floor with LeBron and AD last season. You can look back to one of their games against the Clippers last season when Wood effectively guarded Kawhi Leonard down the stretch and even put an exclamation point on the win with a putback dunk to close out the game.
James, Davis, and Wood had a +25.0 net rating in 108 minutes last season. Yes, that’s in limited minutes, but under new coach JJ Redick, who’s to say his production wouldn’t be increased? Many others have seemingly found something.
Watching how Redick has utilized Jaxson Hayes and AD together, a successful two-big-lineup could be in full effect.
The initial estimated return from his injury was scheduled for eight weeks. At Lakers media day, Wood expressed some optimism by revealing that it may be closer to four weeks. However long it takes, the team could certainly use some depth at the five as soon as possible.
