While in Las Vegas this summer, Max Christie got an early start on working out with his new head coach JJ Redick.
Despite spending very little time on the court in the second half of last season, the Lakers' re-signing of Max Christie this summer was met with much excitement. In his brief cameos in his sophomore season, Christie impressed.
It wasn’t just the fans who came away enthused after the season, though. The front office clearly shared those feelings as they ironed out a deal before free agency even started.
New head coach JJ Redick also shares in that excitement and helped Christie get a bit of a head start this summer. Despite not being on the Lakers Summer League roster, Max spent early July in Las Vegas supporting his younger brother Cam, who was drafted by the Clippers this year.
With Redick and the Lakers staff already in Vegas, Max took advantage of the opportunity and worked out with Redick, as he revealed in an interview with Jovan Buha of The Athletic on his latest podcast episode.
“Both of us are really on the same schedule, if you will, in terms of how I want to be used and how he wants to use me within the offense, within the rotation. We really both got a taste of it in Vegas when we were both there and I was working out a lot. He was always present. He was always kind of running the drills and putting me in situations that he wants me to be in during the season, too.”
Despite not being much of a factor in the final months of last season, the Lakers clearly view Christie as part of their future. Over the summer as the team was searching for a head coach, Christie’s name was mentioned as reportedly one of the core pieces of the team’s future.
With the departures of Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie, both players who were in the rotation at season’s end, Christie is likely going to receive a big uptick in minutes. That’s good new for a number of reasons, including the fact that his game sounds tailor-made for Redick’s approach offensively, as he also discussed with Buha.
“The good thing with JJ…there’s going to be a movement, I think a lot of free-flowing movement within our offense with cuts and pin downs and all sorts of stuff. That’s what I’ve been working on here at home and especially with the coaches in Vegas and then even in California, too. Just a lot of that off-ball movement, catching and shooting, playing off of closeouts, stuff that I really have done my first two years and then expanding on it more.
I think we’re on the same page with that stuff and I think we’re all in agreement that I’m going to be a good part of the offense and defense and the rotation just in general so I’m looking forward to that.”
Christie looks set to be afforded a really big opportunity and a big role next season. After a couple of seasons of limited chances, sparse minutes and sporadic appearances, he’s going to get his shot this season and could prove to be the next talented young Laker to take a leap.
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