Undrafted Wood making early impression

GALLOWAY, N.J – Christian Wood made an impression on me at the 76ers' first two training camp practices.

The undrafted rookie power forward made things look easy in Tuesday and Wednesday's morning end-of-practice drilled the media witnessed.

He has "tremendous upside for a bunch of reasons," Sixers coach Brett Brown said. "Let's start with he's a really, really gifted athlete. Second, he can shoot an NBA three.

"Watch him shoot a set shot. The ball comes off his hand with great arc and great backspin like [Robert] Covington."

The Sixers are encouraging him to shoot three-pointers.

The 6-foot-11, 220-pounder averaged 15.7 points, 10 rebounds and 2.7 blocks this past season as a sophomore at UNLV.  The California native earned all-Mountain West Conference honor.

"So you take that bouncy athlete, who's sort of known as a shot blocker and just tumbled out of late-round projections and one stage of his year at Vegas, and now can shoot a three, too," Brown said, "it's something that fits into our scheme of trying to grow and develop players with maybe big upside."

Follow and contact Inquirer 76ers beat writer Keith Pompey on Twitter @PompeyOnSixers and on Instagram at PompeyOnSixers