while i'm always beating the "you need to temper your draft expectations" drum, i'll say that the 2022 draft has yielded a lot of solid players already. almost none from the second round, though. so the max pick is just one of many who have done nothing. as a max moderate, i'll say i felt like he moved his feet very well defensively, but didn't show great instincts. where he did show great instincts, imo, was on the boards. his shot looked like it would eventually come around (this was considered a positive when he was recruited, iirc--like reddish, he was supposed to be a shooter/scorer). his ballhandling was always questionable, though i thought he showed some potential as a pick and roll ball handler in summer league. not a pg, just good enough to put the ball on the floor 4-5 times without me freaking out. anyway, he's been junk this year; not much else to say about it. and it will be a huge miss, contract-wise, if this continues, as we'll have 8m in dead weight that can't be traded until two years from now. that's not a 2-year vet min player option problem. it's substantially larger. we need to hope it changes.
He had a great game, largely on defense. I think the refs were really letting them play tonight, not a lot of weak calls, that benefits Max too when they’re usually calling quick fouls on him. You have to think it’s way too soon to give up on the kid, if we just ships him off now we likely regret it just like we are watching Pippen Jr and Huff. He could also be another THT, but it just feels too soon to say. He did already look like he cleaned some stuff up tonight, like he went for a reverse layup and used the rim for protection from getting blocked instead of going for his usual 2 hand dunk, and he swung the ball a couple times instead of taking a possibly more contested shot.
It's the small things Christie did that I noticed. Deflections, correct passes, timely cuts. That steal on a pass to Wembanyama was nice.
ummm, we hate him, he sucks, trade bait ................ woe, awesome plays, why we pay him the big bucks!! Too soon to bury him and not enough to anoint him. Time is what he needs, but I mean, just a few more games under his belt. One thing that I will say is that nobody around here is considering the obstacle of learning a new system. We have a tendency to go through coaches and every single time, it takes a fairly large portion of games at the beginning to really get all the new plays for these guys. It just does. We are 8-4 while learning a completely new system coming off of two seasons where there was no system, just let Lebron and AD figure it out, we will ride them into the sunset. We had no system, to having a solid system. Has to be a bit to adjust to.
It's what I was saying a page or so back, that this "he's absolute garbage" could and should change if he just started hitting some shots at a decent % again, as he has done in the past already, and stop being stupid with trying to force dunks on BIGS waiting for him at the rim and brain farts. Then his STATS up to that point in the season were tossed back at me and not a whole lot to argue with them staring you in the face. But the GLIMPSES especially at his young age, with his body starting to fill out, are important, because you CAN see he has talent to be in the league even if it's taken longer than we hoped. He's only 21. 8M a year is a fine investment and it may wind up being a good trade chip to go with the player. I think Dalton ultimately makes him expendable in a hopefully good trade for us. Rather than "dead money" his contract becomes "cost controlled" for 3-4 years for a young talent getting better.
Max!!!!! Let's go!!! He was really great. So happy for him, he shows a lot of untapped potential and is so grounded as a person. I really hope things go well for him, I believe in him. Love how JJ is managing these guys. Cam, Max, Knecht, DLo. Punishing them when they deserve but also rewarding them at the right time. Knecht was huge the previous game and saw extended minutes and closed the game. Started this one. This time was Max. This type of consistency is great for the players, there's no favors or weird decisions, just pure logic and responding to what the player shows out. So the players own their usage, the more they show, the more they get. That's how you maximize your role players, this type of competition is great for us
Did a really good job being ready for his next chance. Effort, energy, and motor. He needs the Gabe minutes and that's coming off of one of Gabe's best games as a Laker, as sad as that is. He has size and athleticism that Gabe just doesn't bring. With DLO coming off the bench, we don't need Gabe's ball handling in that unit very much either
Christie's shooting should be go up in time given minutes and opportunities. Difficult to build a rhythm with so few attempts. He had a couple that rattled out last night. He was not tossing clankers from outside like Wembanyama did given the smaller sample of course.
I don't think he or any of his teammates thought that open look in the corner to seal the game was going in. He did well on a last second prayer turnaround and the tipin but that was overall a rough outing and back to form for him Too small to bother a guy like Ingram, screen navigation is a mess and he was giving cardio Gabe a run for his money there on who could post the lowest bixscore numbers
Pretty much. Too bad he didn't carry from the Spurs game but still managing to impact the result with that rebound is great to see. Let's continue to hope we get more of the Spurs game, he's 21! Younger than many rookies. If we look in that perspective, is better than +90% of the 2nd rounders of the last 3 years
Tough start to season for him overall but I'm still in no real rush to trade him. Honestly, I'd like to see us fully develop a guy since we are going to really need to be able to do that in the post LeBron era.
He’s been a little more consistent lately, still up and down, but at least contributing in noticeable ways unlike goose egg Gabe
