 What's the word y'all? A few hours ago the Dallas Mavericks traded for Christian Wood and I'm like, man, that's a surprise. We're still in the NBA finals and we've had two trades go through already man. And this one is a relatively big trade if you ask me. The team that was just in the conference finals just added a piece for practically nothing. And I've never seen somebody as polarized as Christian Wood. Okay, that's not true. Obviously most NBA superstars are polarizing because they're gonna be people that love them and people hate them. But I mean like on the tier of Christian Woods play I've never seen somebody as polarizing. And I don't mean polarizing and like Patrick Beverly like you either hate them or you love them because he's pushing people in the bag and he's tripping people and he's always talking. I mean like people are polarizing on whether or not he can play basketball. I've seen it both ways. This trade happened a couple hours ago and I've seen some used to rock his die hard to my mental say, Kenny, I know this might look like an underpay or that we got finesse but the world will see that Christian Wood ain't that nice. And I've seen people that say this is an absolute finesse for the Dallas Mavericks. But before we talking to it, let me let me give you the package. In case you missed out, which is like, where you been? Where you been at? The trade is Bobon, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke, Marquis Chris in the 26th overall pick and Marquis Chris like towards ACL or something that he's rehabbing. So this trade was salary filler plus 26 to get Christian Wood. And when you look at it like that it can look like a finesse considering if you're looking at the raw numbers of Christian Wood. Man, you know, he had. And initially, I'm gonna be honest with you. I saw this trade and was thinking about it for the Dallas Mavericks. I was like, I don't really love it. And only reason I didn't love it is because the initial tweet from Shams just say the use of rocks are finalizing the deal to trade Christian Wood to the Dallas Mavericks. There was no context. There was no pieces. And now that I see it's people that don't play in the 26th overall pick. This is a low risk, high reward situation. Bobon, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke, Marquis Chris. How many minutes, real minutes? Don't give me those garbage time minutes. How many minutes did those players play in this recent conference finals appearance? Let's be honest. They traded all of these people that don't even play for them and the 26th overall pick to get a guy in Christian Wood that can, at the bare minimum, he's raising the floor a little bit. And I'm here to talk about that. Like I said, there are some people that think he can't play at all. There's some people that think this is an absolute finesse and that Christian Wood is now gonna be an all star because he's got a playmaker. Reality is, it's probably somewhere in the middle. And that might be when we look back on it, this not be that much of a bad trade for the Houston Rockets. It seems like they're trying to use this pick. And I think they have number 17 to move up higher in the lottery, getting number 13 or 14. So I don't think this trade is completely done for the Houston Rockets just yet. So let's not grade it from that standpoint. Let's talk about what the Dallas Mavericks could potentially be getting in Christian Wood. Christian Wood is a dude that has the ability to roll and be a lot of a vertical threat for Luka Donchich. He has the ability to pop and be a three point shooter for Luka Donchich. And I think it opens up the game offensively for the Dallas Mavericks to a whole new level. Because it feel like you either had to do one or the other. If you saw that Dwight Powell was coming to set the screen for Luka Donchich, you know that Dwight Powell is going to roll to the basket. If it was Maxi Kleba setting the pick, you knew that he was gonna pop out to the three. Now with Christian Wood, you get it either of the way. You feel me? And Christian Wood might have inflated numbers because once James Harden left Houston, somebody had to score the ball. But I think that he can still put up really good numbers. The little amount of time that we saw Christian Wood with a playmaker and it's not a lot of time. The bro was playing on a couple of different teams. We put up pretty solid numbers with nobody to give him the ball. And like last year, he used to Rockets. They got a bunch of kids that are trying to develop. So he didn't really have that. But that small sample size of him and James Harden, remember he signed there like, I want to go win and then they traded James Harden. He like, no, I'm not winning anymore. They had a couple of games that he played together. And this was like James Harden, where he was telling the world that he wants to get traded and he wasn't really completely locked in. I remember Christian Wood having pretty good numbers. Actually, I can go look that up. What am I talking about? Okay, the sample size is even smaller than I remember. It is seven games. Him and James Harden play seven games together in their seven games. He averaged 23 points per game, 8.7 rebounds and then 1.3 assists. It's not looked at to be a passer. But that was when he had an elite level playmaker. And now he has that again with Luka Donchich. And I'm just curious to see how Jason Kidd uses him in the offense, but more specifically in the defense because it don't take a rocket science, you get rocket science as he play for the Rock. It don't take a rocket scientist to watch Christian Wood play basketball. And be like, he's like a nothing on defense. And when you have a team like the Dallas Mavericks, they hold their hats on defense because they have this crazy guy in Luka Donchich. You can hold them offensively and you need four other players around Luka that are positive defenders to make everything work. And Christian Wood throughout his career has been a net negative. Now there is a world potentially where him being on the last year of his contract, he's like, hey, I want to make a little bit more money. So let me lock in defensively. Or maybe the fact that he's on a team that was just in the conference finals and they're actually playing for something more than lottery balls. He can go out there and actually play more defense. So it's the only time will tell, right? We've seen people step it up once they got to a new situation that mattered more for winning. But we also seen it the other way where like a player is bad defensively and they stay bad defensively no matter what type of place they end up being. And one of the things I saw a lot when I watched Houston Rockets in the last season, but I'm gonna keep it a buck with y'all. Once we got to the second half of the season for the Houston Rockets, I was a possession watcher and not a live game watcher. Like I wanted to see what Jaylen Green was doing. So I'll go back and watch his possessions and not watch the entire game. But again, so take my opinion with somewhat of a grain of salt. This is what I was seeing when I did watch Christian Wood when he played, cause that's actually another thing about Christian Wood. He stays out of the lineup with different injuries. But anyway, he turns into a player that feels like he has to do everything by himself. He has to be the playmaker. He has to be the guy that's holding the ball all the time. He has to create his own shot. And now with Jason Kidd, that has to be gone because it's Luke and Jaylen Brunson. At least that's what they're hoping as Jaylen Brunson comes back. And those dudes are the primary ball handler. Especially then when he gets to that second unit, he is the primary ball handler. And Christian Wood has to get it in the floor of the Oat. And I'm curious to see how that looks for him because I didn't see a ton of that over the past couple of seasons. Wood also became a player that when he wasn't a pick and roll, he didn't roll hard enough or he didn't make the decisive enough decision to pop out completely. And because of that, his pick and roll seemed like luster. But I'm, again, I'm just assuming that when you have Luca Dantzich as your ball handler and you have Jason Kidd as your coach, a lot of that goes to the wayside eventually. I wouldn't be surprised if through the first month of the season, this team is not spectacular. But just like last season, they turn it up eventually and now they find himself as one of the top teams in the Western Conference. But like I said earlier, man, the Western Conference is going to be kind of stacked. So I don't really know. Either way, like I said, low risk, high reward. If Christian Wood is buns, you only gave up to 26 overall pick for him and you can let him walk a free agency next season. If he's good, you give him an extension and now you find you found something in Dallas. But like this just, this feels like a good trade for them. I'm surprised that with the value being so low, that other teams couldn't find this deal or something similar. I guess it was reported. They were looking for people that will be off the books in a year and they wanted a first round pick. I feel like other teams to get there. Now I'm not about to draw up the trade for you myself, but I feel like there are other teams out there that were probably in the early 20s to the 30 that could have taken Christian Wood for that package. Maybe there wasn't that big of a suit, big suitors. Right? Christian Wood has been in trade scenarios for like a year now and they never pulled the trigger. Maybe that was because they didn't find the right deal or maybe it was because people wasn't really that interested. I don't really know. But it is funny to see that last week Bleach Report put together an article that I'd need to find because I saw it and we didn't react to it because it was only a couple trades, but it had like a bunch of trades in it and one of them had to do a Christian Wood being moved. So let me find that. Here's the deal that Bleach Report put together three days ago. And obviously the Dallas Mavericks paid a lot less than two really good rotational pieces and a first round pick. They paid a ton less than this. So it just shows you that us as NBA fans, we don't know a goddamn thing about what it's like to be a real general manager where even some of the most esteemed writers can put together trade packages that aren't even close to realistic and then we see a trade and it's like, dang. All of those players can buy not even close to Brandon Clarke or not even close to the Anthony Mountain and they got a worse pick. You know, a worse pick. And I know there are some like, some things about Christian Wood as far as locker rooms, but I'm a firm believer of one public event does not determine the character of a person. Could he be bad for the locker room? Maybe, but I'm not judging the man off of that one thing that happened earlier this season. Only time will tell, right? Only time will tell. If I'm the Houston Rockets fans, I'm not tripping too much. You got something out of a player that you've been trying to trade for some time. I mean, if it was this or this trade, obviously I'm mad that we didn't get the Anthony Bowden and Brandon Clarke. But like I mentioned earlier, they have aspirations of moving up in the draft. So we got to see. We got to see if they keep this pick. Who do they select with that pick? And maybe he blossomed into something that doesn't. I mean, we got an expiring contract of a dude that have polar opposites when it comes to people's opinions about him. So I'm okay with the way they went out. They got another guy on the roster in John Wall who's just kind of sitting there. Will they be able to find a suitor for him? Probably not because he's taking that 47 Ms or whatever it is. Let me know in the comment section what you think about the Christian Wood trade. I'm just happy that we're getting trades right now. NBA Finals are tomorrow night. And I'm excited about that. But I want to talk about Christian Wood because now we got Luca Jalen Brunson. Tamar Dewey Jr. will be back. Yep, Tamar Dewey Jr. will be back. Dorn Finney Smith and Christian Wood. I'm okay. Defensively, that scares me a little bit. That lineup right there scares me a little bit. But when you put Christian Wood next to Max and Cleba and Dorn Finney Smith is on the court, you got me on that one. I'm sold. They gave me the two guards, Jalen Brunson and Luca Donchich. And now all of those dudes can shoot. And then at least some of those dudes can play defense. I like that lineup.