Houston Rockets: Christian Wood isn’t only getting disrespected by Shaq

The Houston Rockets don’t look anything like what they expected when last season ended, losing Russell Westbrook and James Harden but gaining Victor Oladipo and Christian Wood. Their whole outlook is drastically different, and while they may not have playoffs in their future this season, things may end up better for them in the long run.

This shakeup in fortunes comes thanks in part to signing one of the prizes in free agency when they inked Christian Wood to a three-year, $42 million contract. Wood is off to a phenomenal start for the Rockets and is an early candidate for Most Improved Player. He’s averaging 23.5 points, 10.8 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.4 assists per game with shooting splits of .528/.362/.673.

Christian Wood has been great for the Houston Rockets, but disrespect remains

Wood emerged from obscurity last season with the Detroit Pistons. He was a reclamation project after bouncing around the league from team to team and barely made their roster out of the preseason, needing a last-second old-man injury to Joe Johnson to fully seal the deal.

From the start of the preseason, Christian Wood stood out on a largely depressing Pistons roster, but he had to bide his time on the depth chart behind Thon Maker for much of the season. While he shone in short stints, he didn’t really get the chance to show the NBA world what he could do until Andre Drummond was traded and Wood was pretty much the only offensive weapon the Pistons had on their roster.

To observers of the Pistons, it almost seemed like head coach Dwane Casey was the last to see how much better Christian Wood was than anything else on the roster. Of course, there are likely internal reasons for this, but we might be giving Casey too much credit with this assumption.

It looks like Wood’s delayed breakout might have impacted the way casual fans around the NBA, like Shaquille O’Neal, view him.

Following a 109-105 Houston Rockets win over the San Antonio Spurs on January 14th, in which Wood scored 27 points and added 15 rebounds and three blocks, he spoke to Shaq in an interview.

Shaq stated: “I owe you an apology, I wasn’t familiar with your game,” and Wood interrupted to jokingly fire back, “Oh man, you’re a casual.”

This was an awkward moment for Shaq, of which there have been several lately (like this interview with Donovan Mitchell on Thursday night). Casual fans are being forced to recognize that Wood is a talented offensive force, but not only fans are going to have to come to terms with this.

Shaq isn’t the only one disrespecting Christian Wood

It seems as though NBA referees are slow to the party as well, because in spite of a heavier workload and huge minutes boost compared to last season, and very little stylistic change to his game, Wood’s free throw attempts have barely moved upwards.

Regard the following:

Last season Wood shot 3.9 free throws per game while playing an average of 21.4 minutes. His usage was 23.0 percent and his free throw rate (number of free throw attempts per field goal attempt) was 47.6 percent. For a physical and explosive player who gets to the basket seemingly at will, these numbers are fairly in line with what you’d expect.

This season, he’s shooting 4.6 free throws per game while playing an average of 33.6 minutes. His usage has jumped to 27.7 percent, and his free throw rate has plummeted to just 25.9 percent. To compare, that’s just a touch better than J.J. Redick, Dennis Schroder and Victor Oladipo, and it’s worse than the .264 FTr that the shell of Blake Griffin is producing.

On a more granular level, last season Christian Wood shot 6.6 free throws per 36 minutes and 9.0 per 100 possessions, while this season he’s shooting 4.9 free throws per 36 minutes and 6.4 per 100 possessions.

Wood’s game hasn’t changed much, but the way he’s being officiated certainly seems to. Perhaps there’s some anti-Houston Rockets bias leftover from the days of James Harden and Daryl Morey’s spreadsheets, but this precipitous dip in foul calls is an indictment on NBA officiating in the early days of this season.