Back on Oct. 9, the Los Angeles Lakers played the Brooklyn Nets in a preseason game. During that game, star big man Anthony Davis reprimanded Christian Wood.
After talking to Davis, Wood went on to score eight straight points late in the third quarter. Recently, Davis detailed what went into him reprimanding Wood during the Lakers-Nets game.
“I got on him in Vegas,” Davis told ESPN. “I was telling him just, ‘You use this time to catch a rhythm. We’re not going through the motions.’
“And he didn’t take it personal, he just took it with him like, ‘All right, cool.’ And he scored like eight straight [points] after that. So I’m just trying to see what motivates him, what pushes him.
“I’m telling him if you want to take your game to the next level, get that contract that you want, this is [the consistency needed] every day.”
Wood has served as a solid backup big man for the Lakers so far during the 2023-24 regular season. He is averaging 7.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game while shooting 46.2 percent from the floor and 40.7 percent from behind the 3-point line across 10 appearances with the franchise.
One of the big man’s most underrated skills is his passing ability, but he hasn’t had many opportunities to show off his passing chops so far this season, as evidenced by the fact that he’s averaging just 0.9 assists per game. That is his lowest assists average since the 2018-19 season when he played for the Milwaukee Bucks and New Orleans Pelicans.
Wood signed a two-year deal with the Lakers during the offseason after an up-and-down stint with the Dallas Mavericks a season ago.
After enduring a three-game losing streak earlier on in the month, Wood and the Lakers have won their last two games. They beat Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and the Phoenix Suns in an In-Season Tournament game on Nov. 10 and subsequently beat the Portland Trail Blazers on Nov. 12.
Wood put together a forgettable performance off the bench against the Trail Blazers on Sunday. He scored seven points and shot just 1-of-4 from the field in 15 minutes of play.
Davis had the best offensive performance of any Laker against Portland, seeing as how he dropped a team-high 30 points and shot 10-of-20 from the field. Plus, he dished out six assists for Los Angeles in a win that improved the team’s home record to 4-0 on the season.
The Lakers will face off against Desmond Bane and the Memphis Grizzlies in another In-Season Tournament game on Tuesday. They should be able to earn their third win in a row against Memphis, as the Grizzlies own a 2-8 record right now, which is the worst record in the Western Conference.
