Which player is most likely to be traded by the Rockets in the offseason?
From the perspective of salary structure, Gordon, Wood and Nuwaba are the three players most likely to trade with the Rockets, the first two players have salaries in tens of millions, and Nuwaba's contract, although not up to the tens of millions, is very well matched above the base salary.
From a contract perspective, Gordon's contract expires in the summer of 2024, but the last year is non-guaranteed, the team has the team option, Wood's contract expires in the summer of 2023, and basically both players are contracted to expire next summer.
Judging from the size of the contract, Gordon's salary is $16.86 million this season, Wood's salary is $13.3 million, and the cost performance of the contract is higher.
In terms of the age of the two players, Gordon is about to turn 34 and is at risk of declining competitive status, while Wood is only 27 years old and is in the middle of the game, and the risk of competitive status decline in the short term is not large.
In terms of the rockets' position, Wood is the team's average points per game, is the team's rebounding king, and Wood's status on the team is significantly higher than Gordon, the contract price is lower, the data is better, and the age is not large, from these perspectives, Wood should be a better team than Gordon.
But in reality, this is not the case, although Wood has excellent offensive skills, but the defense is relatively bad, can not carry the heavy responsibility of the core of the team, and Gordon as a veteran, any team will not take Gordon as the core at the moment, but will gordon as a puzzle to compete for the championship, Wood will not, Wood's poor defense makes it difficult to get too much playing time in the playoffs, resulting in a certain impact on the starting price.
That is to say, Wood's most difficult is the positioning problem, if Wood joins the playoffs, and even the championship team, Wood's defense will be infinitely magnified, Wood will be targeted by the opponent to get out of the court, but Wood's offense is very good, can become an important factor in the team's digestion of the ball.
Rebuilding the team also does not need a team like Wood, Wood's 27-year-old age has basically passed the stage of training, the playing style has basically been fixed, more as a combat force, and Wood digests the ball a lot, and it is very easy to hinder the growth of young players.
The Rockets, as a rebuilding team, originally introduced Wood, mainly to keep Harden, Wood is very compatible with Harden on the offensive end, plus PJ Tucker can help Wood wipe his ass on the defensive end, prompting such a reinforcement to become the golden reinforcement at that time, which can not only play harden's value indefinitely, but also liberate Tucker's alignment ability, so that Tucker's excellent ability to supplement and assist defense is displayed.
However, Harden and Tucker have left the Rockets, the Rockets have entered rebuild mode, during the pairing with Wall and Oladipo, Wood's offense is more comprehensive and more versatile than these two players, Wood is not surprising to become the number one ball digester of the Rockets offense, in the case of rebuilding the team is not too focused on defense, Wood's defensive problems are not too harmful to the team.
And when the Rockets found the rebuilding core Jaylen Green, the Rockets' defense showed an unbearable situation in the opening stages, whether it was Green, Porter or Wood, making the Rockets' defense not better.
Wood's defensive problems are gradually magnified, especially Wood's single defense ability is extremely bad, the inside line can not withstand the big man, the change of defense can not prevent the small man, the change of defense often appears in the defense position is not good, the defense is heavy, and the communication with teammates is not good.
Later in the season, when Porter and Jaylen Green's defenses had improved tremendously, only Wood's defense was still very bad, and Wood became the Rockets' most nightmare player.
With Wood's age, and the Rockets' two seasons of defensive performance, Wood's strength confrontation and mobility are unlikely to be available at the same time, and in the presence of good mobility but poor foot movement speed, Wood's defensive awareness is very bad, Wood's defense has basically not improved, and the Rockets are basically unlikely to expect Wood to have a huge improvement on the defensive end.
In the final few games of the season, the Rockets started with Shen Jing and completely abandoned Wood, which showed that Wood was not in the future of the Rockets, and it was only a matter of time before the Rockets traded Wood.
With Wood's current selling point, on the one hand, it can be based on the expiration of the contract and the release of salary space as the selling point, on the other hand, Wood's offense is indeed excellent, Wood's mobile mobility play is the trend of the league's big play, and the key is to configure a defensive interior line for Wood.
In addition, Wood can digest the ball, the salary is not high, the playing style is in line with the trend of the times, or the expiration contract, Wood in the trading market, or should have a certain transaction value.
From the current point of view, the team that introduces Wood is either a defender and Wood's blocking and dismantling adaptation, or an excellent internal defense ability, which can make up for Wood's defensive deficiencies and release Wood's offensive power.
For now, the potential trade for Wood's team still exists.
From the current point of view, the teams that match Wood are the Hawks, Heat, 76ers, Jazz, Lone Rangers, Warriors, Clippers, Lakers and other teams.
Most of these teams are playoff teams, on the one hand, Wood and Trae Young are very compatible, can enrich Trae Young's tactics, Wood's offense is better than Capela, of course, Capela's defense is better than Wood.
The Heat's Tucker and Wood seem to be very compatible, and the interior line of Adebayo and Wood's double mobility players can also be called the Bucks, and the configuration of the Bucks Lopez and Alphabet Brother is benchmarked.
Harden of the 76ers is a good fit with Wood, and after Drummond went to the Nets, Wood as a substitute for Embiid, or replaced Harris with Wood, can maximize the power of the 76ers on both ends of the offensive and defensive ends.
The Jazz are knighted again in the King Mountain in the series with the Lone Ranger, Gobert is targeted by Doncic, the jazz's offensive development problems appear, Wood is more valuable than Bojan, and the defensive end Gobert can make up for Wood's defensive deficiencies.
The Warriors' projection and blocking, Wood can be perfectly adapted, and chasing Green on the defensive end can help Wood wipe his ass and perfectly adapt to Wood.
The Clippers' starting center is Zubac, substitute center Haltenstein, in the case of excellent defense, Covington, Powell, George, Leonard can make up for Wood's defensive deficiencies, Wood's offense has a huge effect on the team.
For the Lakers, thick eyebrow injuries are too frequent, Wood relatively thick eyebrows, is a spare tire, but also in the bench connection section to help the Lakers, Wood and thick eyebrows at the same time, the power of both ends of the attack and defense is huge.
From these various situations, Wood still has a certain market, or a certain transaction value, the team that has a demand for Wood, basically must have a good enough defensive configuration, put Wood in the correct configuration, Wood's role can be infinitely magnified, and Wood's trading variables this summer, from the current point of view, depends on the problems faced by these playoff teams in the playoffs, and the urgency of dealing with the problems, Wood is not the most optimized answer to these questions.