The group chats are in shambles. If you look away from your phone for a beat, you return to 10 more ways your friends have thought of to get mad about The Trade. The All-Star break was no break for Mavericks fans, as the entire weekend felt like an opportunity for the NBA to convene and talk about the horrible thing that happened to your team. Luka Doncic will wear a Lakers jersey and take the floor against the Mavericks next week. Everyone is free to respond to the deluge of emotionally charged news as they see fit. But, rest assured, for those in the “not sure how to move on” camp, you will be continually supplied ample fodder to stay just as bummed as you are right now.
Back to the group chats, my true North Star in confusing times such as these. Perhaps 5 percent of my Mavericks-related interactions have been positive over the past two-plus weeks. One percent of those came in the first half of the only game Anthony Davis has played as a Maverick. The remainder were all pretty similar: “OK, Max Christie is nice.”
With 10 starts under his belt before this season, the 35th pick in the 2022 draft has become our only cope and hope for grasping at how this trade maybe made sense from a basketball perspective. There has been a lot of talk of the franchise’s updated “window” and the notion the Mavericks essentially have to win a title in the next couple of years for the trade to have been remotely worth it (to those open to this idea of “worth it”). Most of that discourse centers on Davis’s health or lack thereof, and what the soon-to-be 31-year-old has left in the tank. He would have to consistently play at nearly the highest level of his career for the Mavericks to be contenders, which to be fair, he was close to doing over the past two seasons.
The reality, though, is that even that unlikely outcome and the rosiest projection for Davis would probably not be enough to put this roster over the top. This team will need more, and there aren’t a lot of guys with significant room to improve in the locker room. (Side note: this is at heart of the change in the fan experience. With Doncic’s Mavericks, we knew the best version of them could beat anyone. We had seen it, and we believed it. With Nico Harrison’s Mavericks, there is a whole lot of hoping, squinting, and suspension of disbelief.) Christie, however, stands alone in this regard. As a result, he has unwittingly become the most pivotal piece in the most astounding trade in league history.
Christie was a five-star recruit coming out of high school. He spent one season at Michigan State, earning Big Ten All-Freshman honors. He didn’t exactly light the collegiate world on fire, but the athleticism and IQ he showed in college coupled with his high school pedigree and physical attributes were enough to get him selected early in the second round of the draft. Scouting reports highlighted his capability and willingness on the defensive end, both on and off the ball. Offensively, he was viewed as a player who could do just about everything but needed to do all of it a bit better. He didn’t shoot it great from the floor, but his percentage at the line was encouraging. He had all the makings of a potentially great role player on the wing if things panned out.
And things were panning out! Christie showed enough in his first two seasons in Los Angeles to compel Rob Pelinka, winner of the 2025 Luckiest Person Alive Award, to sign him to a four-year, $32 million contract last summer. On a less competitive team, Christie would’ve logged more minutes, but it speaks volumes that he was able to prove himself worthy in limited time. We’ve longed for players like Josh Green and Jaden Hardy to take that next step, and it appears that Christie already has. By December, Christie was a starter playing 30 minutes a night. His efficiency continued to increase along with his volume. This was not a flukey run, not a hot hand. Christie has answered the question of whether he’s a starting caliber player on a good NBA team. He is about to have a lucrative next decade, and he’ll probably always be coveted in trade talks solely becausegood teams always need players like Christie.
OK, so, great. The Mavericks got another above-average starter, and he’s young. Cool. But that’s not what gets the people going. What moves the needle is considering the ceiling for Christie, and asking each other “are we sure Max Christie can’t be great?” This is both a sad question to be asking ourselves, and also one worth asking.
I can’t say I watched Christie closely during his first two years, but he did jump out at me in January when the Mavericks hosted the Lakers. If you perceive him as a three-and-D player, he will surprise you. Here and there he would initiate the offense, even with Davis, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves on the floor. Personnel types salivate over the “we think he could do more here” types–they usually just don’t trade Hall of Fame players in their prime to find out– and we’re already seeing that with Christie in Dallas. He is driving the ball far more, with 14 and 11 drives against Golden State and Miami, respectively. Those are his two highest totals in that category this season. He is averaging twice as many free throws per game in his six games with Dallas than he was with Los Angeles this season.
You can see the pressure he applies defensively, and that tends to be easier to project over heavier minutes. The development of his offensive game will determine whether he is a good starter or a potential All-Star. The Mavericks coaching staff deserve some credit for immediately empowering and trusting Christie (though they don’t have a lot of options). We don’t really know a ton about the type of player Christie will become, but his willingness to attack the basket is a good start. His shooting context stats are all over the place and the sample size too small to make much of a projection there.
What we know is this: he just turned 22, and he’s on a ridiculously friendly contract (when you self-impose a three-year championship window on yourself by getting older, a contract like this becomes the most valuable asset you have). He has no real physical limitations, and he could easily become a player perennially considered for All-Defensive team honors. We know he has a high basketball IQ, having earned the trust of James and Lakers coach J.J. Redick. And we know he isn’t afraid of the ball. That’s a good start.
Right now, it is impossible to fully consider or analyze Christie sans the context of how he was acquired. Of course, the irony is that Christie is tailor-made to have played with Doncic. But he’s also a nice fit with Kyrie Irving because he’s a great fit with and complement to just about any point guard. Irving’s future beyond this season is uncertain, but what Christie offers will make it easier for this team to rebuild after Irving and Davis. He’s very easy to root for. He has the potential to be the second-best player on a contending team. If you can, try to enjoy watching him attempt to figure that out in a Mavericks uniform.
