Head coach Darvin Ham of the Los Angeles Lakers said after the fact that All-Star center Anthony Davis was substituted out early in the team’s final Sunday afternoon 123-113 loss. The Brow’s absence, Ham said, effectively had a cascading impact on his lineup decisions for the remainder of the game.
This was especially true with Ham’s odd underutilization of second-year shooting guard Max Christie, according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic:
The 6’6″ former Michigan State University player only played for five minutes during the game, scoring three points on one of two long-range shots and dishing out one assist.
With all the makings of a strong 3-and-D player, Christie might even be able to return draft value in a trade, which is not a given for any second-round draft pick. This season, through 46 games (seven starts), the 21-year-old is averaging 17.1 minutes per game, five points on a.423/.351/.780 shooting split, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.1 assists. All of those are career highs because this season he has (mostly) established himself as a regular rotation player. He did at the beginning of the 2022–2023 campaign, but
He signed a two-year, fully-guaranteed contract with the Chargers, and at the end of this season, he’ll be a restricted free agency. If Ham believes Christie is worth keeping, he needs to give him some serious run this spring, especially considering the Lakers only had nine healthy bodies available yesterday (including two-way players).