Christian Wood of the Detroit Pistons in the game against the Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 11, 2020. /VCG
Christian Wood of the Detroit Pistons tested positive for COVID-19, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. The 24-year-old big man is the third positive case in the NBA so far.
On March 7, the Pistons played against the Utah Jazz, the team that had the first positive cases – Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell – in the league. As the Pistons' starting center, Wood played 38 minutes to drop 30 points and 11 rebounds in that game, and his matchup was Gobert for most of the time.
Charania revealed that Wood showed no symptoms and is currently doing well.
Christian Wood #35 of the Detroit Pistons tussles with Rudy Gobert (behind Wood) of the Utah Jazz in the game at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan, March 7, 2020. /VCG
As an undrafted player who joined the NBA in 2015, Wood played for five teams in four years and Detroit is his latest stop. After the team sent All-Star center Andre Drummond to the Cleveland Cavaliers before the trade deadline, Wood grasped the opportunity to take his game to new level. In the five games he played in march, the 2.08-meter center averaged 26.6 points and 8.1 rebounds.
If he can keep producing numbers like this on the court, Wood is likely to earn himself a big contract starting with around 10 million U.S. dollars. By the way, his salary this season is only 1.65 million U.S. dollars.
But the positive COVID-19 test result may ruin all those hopes.
It must be pointed out that Wood did not necessarily get the virus from Gobert.
Christian Wood #35 of the Detroit Pistons tries to shoot the ball against the defense of Al Horford #42 of the Philadelphia 76ers in the game at the Wells Fargo Center, March 11, 2020. /VCG
The Pistons are one of the six teams that played the Jazz in the 10 days before Gobert was tested positive for the virus. The other five are: the Toronto Raptors, New York Knicks, Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards. The Raptors already announced that all their players tested negative for COVID-19.
Wood testing positive also further increased the infection risk of other players. The last team he met with the Pistons were the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday. Counting 14 days back from Saturday, the Pistons also played against the 76ers, Knicks, Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Sacramento Kings.