Charlotte Hornets: Enter Christian Wood
The Charlotte Hornets have reached agreement with free agent forward and former UNLV player Christian Wood.
Last year the Charlotte Hornets had a few guys on the bench you may have forgotten were there. There was Tyler Hansbrough, who played in some games as an emergency big man or when games were already decided. There of course was the recently traded Troy Daniels, the stop gap Jorge Gutierrez, and the currently finished with summer league Aaron Harrison.
These players all had one thing in common. They were cheap guys with small roles. With the Hornets looking to save money this off-season, they were prime targets to be cut loose. Indeed only Harrison is on the team roster right now.
So who will be the next group of roster role players at the bottom of things? Brian Roberts has already agreed to come back. Hansbrough will not be brought back since his veteran’s minimum deal is more than signing a younger player. That means that the Hornets were in the market for a fifth or sixth big man depending on how you view Marvin Williams.
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Worry no longer about who will man that spot. It appears that the Hornets have reached out and signed Christian Wood according to reports from Shams Charania of the Vertical. Wood was technically eligible to be a restricted free agent, but a big man flooded 76ers team didn’t make a move on him and he became unrestricted.
Wood was a player on the Summer League team for the 76ers in their entries in the Rocky Mountain Revue and the Vegas leagues. He averaged about sixteen points and six rebounds in those games. Wood is a 6’11” 220 lbs big man in his second year in the league. The Hornets signed him to a two year deal with a team option for year 2.
Wood averaged 3.6 points and 2.2 points in about eight minutes per game for the 76ers last year. Those numbers are better than Hansbrough’s over similar minutes last year.
Next: Charlotte Hornets Free Agency Winners
The Hornets are now at fourteen players on the roster and have one spot left. It should be for a backup wing. There is also the possibility that the Hornets will enter training camp with more players than the fifteen allowed to work their way down to fifteen by the start of the season.