Christian Wood didn’t want to leave Detroit

[thesack12]

Yeah, just to make sure we’re framing this correctly, we chose GRANT over Wood, not Plumlee.

That’s debatable from a positional perspective, but not from a financial one. Wood wasn’t gonna take less money to stay. You can agree or disagree with the choice of Grant over Wood ( and you know how I feel about giving Grant 60 mill), but let’s not misframe the discussion.

Maybe I’m missing something, I see nothing in the OP that confirms it’s true Wood didn’t want to leave. Very disappointing if true.

The guy asked Christian if he wanted to leave and Christian responded “NOT TRUE” in all caps.

Just to play devil’s advocate, wouldn’t he say that regardless?

He’s not gonna say “oh yeah, I was ready to GTFO of the place that gave me my break”. No player wants to be demonized by fans.

I’ve been pretty demoralized by Weaver’s cap management but I’m not sure I’m convinced by this.

At this point what does he have to gain by saying he didn't want to leave? If anything it would show Houston that he wasn't all in on wanting to be a Rocket.

If this is all legit, I'm sure that is the reason why he decided to delete the comment.

[sfballa13]

What's the final tally on what we gave up?

Last i checked it was:
- Future 1st (in Houston deal)
- 4 future 2nds (in the Clippers deal)
- Bruce Brown, Kennard, Snell
- Taking on between 8-15M of dead money
- Using up every $ of cap we had
- Locking our 1st round pick from being trade for the next four seasons

All so we could
- Sign Jerami Grant
- Sign Plumlee
- Make a huge reach to draft Stewart

Please let me know what i missed so i can add it to the running tally

Weaver had a super easy job
1. Trade Snell, Kennard, Rose, Brown - all small deals, all easy to be traded for 1st rounders/younger players
2. Avoid using any of the cap space up, sign all young guys on short 1-2 year deals, use the rest of absorb deals for 1st rounders
3. Trade Blake

Literally all he had to do and making those trades would have been easy with all these teams loading up in this summer's arms race against the Lakers

Seriously screw Gores. Im done with this team. Too many fun teams to watch with GMs/owners who actually care about making their team great.

Every chance we have at a reset we've ruined. Every. Fkin. Time.

[foolinc]

This statement means very little to me without additional information. Could it have meant that Wood was all ready to accept a deal with Detroit and Detroit passed (or lowballed him)? Sure. Could it be that we offered him a reasonable deal and he choose to play with Houston instead? Yep. Could it be that Wood told Detroit he'd rather play for a team that is trying to make the playoffs? Still yes (because he could just be talking about the area in general).

[Snakebites]

The guy asked Christian if he wanted to leave and Christian responded “NOT TRUE” in all caps.

Just to play devil’s advocate, wouldn’t he say that regardless?

He’s not gonna say “oh yeah, I was ready to GTFO of the place that gave me my break”. No player wants to be demonized by fans.

I’ve been pretty demoralized by Weaver’s cap management but I’m not sure I’m convinced by this.

At this point what does he have to gain by saying he didn't want to leave? If anything it would show Houston that he wasn't all in on wanting to be a Rocket.

If this is all legit, I'm sure that is the reason why he decided to delete the comment.

He’d also delete it if it wasn’t the truth for the same reason. Players very often don’t tell the truth about what is behind the scenes.

[thesack12]

If you don't want to leave a place, you don't go out and ask all of your fans where you should play the following season.

Meh, probably just trying to drum up some clicks & likes. Might have just been bored, who knows.

Besides, I don't see anything wrong with wanting to take the temperature of your fan base. Also need to keep in mind, that professional athletes' reach of fans aren't limited to the fanbase of whatever team they currently play for.

[Piston Pete]

Forgot getting rid of Wood

[thesack12]

Just to play devil’s advocate, wouldn’t he say that regardless?

He’s not gonna say “oh yeah, I was ready to GTFO of the place that gave me my break”. No player wants to be demonized by fans.

I’ve been pretty demoralized by Weaver’s cap management but I’m not sure I’m convinced by this.

At this point what does he have to gain by saying he didn't want to leave? If anything it would show Houston that he wasn't all in on wanting to be a Rocket.

If this is all legit, I'm sure that is the reason why he decided to delete the comment.

He’d also delete it if it wasn’t the truth for the same reason. Players very often don’t tell the truth about what is behind the scenes.

But why say anything in the first place, what would he have to gain?

These dudes, don't sit here and respond to every tweet/comment thrown at them. He could have simply ignored it, like countless others.

[Snakebites]

At this point what does he have to gain by saying he didn't want to leave? If anything it would show Houston that he wasn't all in on wanting to be a Rocket.

If this is all legit, I'm sure that is the reason why he decided to delete the comment.

He’d also delete it if it wasn’t the truth for the same reason. Players very often don’t tell the truth about what is behind the scenes.

But why say anything in the first place, what would he have to gain?

These dudes, don't sit here and respond to every tweet/comment thrown at them. He could have simply ignored it, like countless others.

I have no idea.

I just know better than to assume that players are telling the truth about something potentially negative. We've seen it too many times.

Dwight Howard maintains to this day that he had no problems playing under Stan Van Gundy.

[thesack12]

He’d also delete it if it wasn’t the truth for the same reason. Players very often don’t tell the truth about what is behind the scenes.

But why say anything in the first place, what would he have to gain?

These dudes, don't sit here and respond to every tweet/comment thrown at them. He could have simply ignored it, like countless others.

I have no idea.

I just know better than to assume that players are telling the truth about something potentially negative. We've seen it too many times.

Dwight Howard maintains to this day that he had no problems playing under Stan Van Gundy.

I'm not sure that is the best of examples. That's more of a personal relationship between individuals.

In any event, none of us here on the board know what the real story is. So when we get word from the horse's mouth, that is the most concrete information we are going to get.

[Snakebites]

But why say anything in the first place, what would he have to gain?

These dudes, don't sit here and respond to every tweet/comment thrown at them. He could have simply ignored it, like countless others.

I have no idea.

I just know better than to assume that players are telling the truth about something potentially negative. We've seen it too many times.

Dwight Howard maintains to this day that he had no problems playing under Stan Van Gundy.

I'm not sure that is the best of examples. That's more of a personal relationship between individuals.

In any event, none of us here on the board know what the real story is. So when we get word from the horse's mouth, that is the most concrete information we are going to get.

You are right. We don’t know what the real story is. Perhaps we should stop acting like we do.

[Piston Pete]

Or we could ask Wood himself...

Oh wait, that’s how this thread started....

[thesack12]

I have no idea.

I just know better than to assume that players are telling the truth about something potentially negative. We've seen it too many times.

Dwight Howard maintains to this day that he had no problems playing under Stan Van Gundy.

I'm not sure that is the best of examples. That's more of a personal relationship between individuals.

In any event, none of us here on the board know what the real story is. So when we get word from the horse's mouth, that is the most concrete information we are going to get.

You are right. We don’t know what the real story is. Perhaps we should stop acting like we do.

Perhaps. However, I don't see the harm in discussing the newly discovered info surrounding a recent transaction the Pistons made.

[Snakebites]

I'm not sure that is the best of examples. That's more of a personal relationship between individuals.

In any event, none of us here on the board know what the real story is. So when we get word from the horse's mouth, that is the most concrete information we are going to get.

You are right. We don’t know what the real story is. Perhaps we should stop acting like we do.

Perhaps. However, I don't see the harm in discussing the newly discovered info surrounding a recent transaction the Pistons made.

There’s no harm discussing it, sure. But people are getting REAL emotional over something we don’t even know is true.

[440BB]

With the number of times Wood referred to getting paid and made a guessing game of where he'd play, how does him posting "NOT TRUE" after the fact convince people he really wanted to play here?

I think he would have played here under the right circumstances but we weren't near the top of his list. This was the first time he really had a choice after bouncing around and he seemed to enjoy the possibilities.

[Billl]

I was hoping wood would stay, but let's be realistic. 99% of players are going to opt to go play with Harden over us at this point if the money was remotely close. I'm OK with weaver not overpaying wood for the same reason I'm upset about weaver overpaying Grant. We should be at year zero of a rebuild. We should be accumulating young talent the next couple years and it's likely to take a couple years after that for those guys to mature and gel. I think both wood and grant are nice players entering their primes, but I don't think they contribute to "assembling young talent" and I don't think they are good enough to be a cornerstone we would try to build around any sooner than the current plan.

[thesack12]

You are right. We don’t know what the real story is. Perhaps we should stop acting like we do.

Perhaps. However, I don't see the harm in discussing the newly discovered info surrounding a recent transaction the Pistons made.

There’s no harm discussing it, sure. But people are getting REAL emotional over something we don’t even know is true.

I feel you, but for a lot of people it just seems like another gut punch to an already saddening overall offseason.

If Wood had commented that he was looking forward to leaving, it would have made people around here feel better. But when he suggests he wanted to stay, it just piles on to a move many people weren't happy about.

[MrBigShot]

C'mon guys, the writing's on the wall. Why would a player go out of their way to respond to a comment on instagram and imply they may have wanted to stay? We would have had to offer him more than what he got from Houston, but this is pretty indefensible. I'd definitely give Wood the contract Grant got instead, that's for sure. One guy is a good role player and the other is a potential all star level big who is perfect for today's game. Casey may have been an issue too, our team was a dumpster fire this season and Wood did not get enough minutes.

[thesack12]

I was hoping wood would stay, but let's be realistic. 99% of players are going to opt to go play with Harden over us at this point if the money was remotely close. I'm OK with weaver not overpaying wood for the same reason I'm upset about weaver overpaying Grant. We should be at year zero of a rebuild. We should be accumulating young talent the next couple years and it's likely to take a couple years after that for those guys to mature and gel. I think both wood and grant are nice players entering their primes, but I don't think they contribute to "assembling young talent" and I don't think they are good enough to be a cornerstone we would try to build around any sooner than the current plan.

So you think Harden is bluffing about wanting out of Houston and requesting a trade, and Houston is going to call that bluff and risk alienating him?

I agree with the rest in overall theme, but I disagree that 3 years/$41 mil is an overpay for Wood. At that price he is a trade asset at worst.

[Snakebites]

Just to sorta take this in another direction, the following players received significantly larger contracts than Wood:

Davis Bertans 5/80
Marcus Morris 5/64
Jerami Grant 3/60 (I wasn't going to include him as he was our signing, but decided to given reports the Nuggets offered the same)
Malik Beasley 4/60
Danilo Gallinary 3/61

The following got comparable deals

KCP 3/40
Jordan Clarkson 4/52

To be clear, I'm not necessarily saying Wood is better than these players or vice versa. For the most part they're totally different players. This is more of a general value gage here. But is it POSSIBLE we as fans valued him more than the general market did? That maybe NBA GM's weren't giving as much weight to his run at the end of the year as we were?

[Piston Pete]

Wood at 3/41 is a bargain.

Young, skilled, athletic PF/C who can run the floor, score from all three levels, and rebound well.