3 reasons why the Mavericks will regret the Christian Wood experiment

1. Offloading money last off-season wasn’t worth the drama this season

Aside from the 26th pick that the Mavericks dealt for Christian Wood, they parted ways with four reserve players in Trey Burke, Sterling Brown, Marquese Chriss, and fan-favorite Boban Marjanovic. Despite it being a sad goodbye to Boban, bringing Christian Wood to Dallas was looked at as a no-brainer at the time.

The salaries that the Mavericks were getting rid of were extremely relieving at the time, as Dallas was poised to fill out a few vacant roster spots after the four-for-one swap was finalized. The only guaranteed contracts that Dallas added in the 2022 offseason barring Wood were JaVale McGee, Facundo Campazzo, and Jaden Hardy.

The Mavericks only had a little cap space last off-season, but after Jalen Brunson left for nothing, they decided to give the full Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception to JaVale McGee (And a smidge to Jaden Hardy as well).

The Mavericks needed to capitalize upon their remaining roster spots, and despite draft pick Jaden Hardy being a prominent young piece for the Mavericks' future young core, JaVale McGee was just recently stretch-waived by Dallas because he played so badly last year that his three-year deal became enough of an albatross contract that Dallas had no other avenue to get rid of him.

Dallas didn't suffice in their effort to consolidate four bad contracts and a first-round pick into a helpful roster piece, and if anything, the Wood drama only made things worse in Dallas last year. There were reports that Wood was a locker room cancer in his previous stops before Dallas.

The situation wasn't accentuated to that degree in Dallas as Wood seemed like a good guy, but the constant reports of him wanting more playing time, as well as Dallas' refusal to concede to that request, definitely created a weird and unnecessary dynamic within the organization.

We can only hope that the Mavericks have learned their lesson going forward with the Christian Wood situation, even though we don't know the full details of what went on beyond closed doors yet.

We'll have you covered with all the latest news and rumors surrounding the Dallas Mavericks for the rest of this offseason and training camp, so stay tuned.