Max Christie endeared himself to the Mavs Moneyball staff immediately after being shipped to the Dallas Mavericks as a throw-in addition to February’s horrific Luka Dončić-for-Anthony-Davis trade.
Responsible fans everywhere respected the fact that Davis and Christie, despite being tied to the catastrophic trade in our collective mind’s eye, were fully blameless in this soap opera plot line. Then we found out Christie’s full name. Cormac Karl “Max” Christie Jr. — which the 22-year-old out of Michigan State apparently does NOT prefer.
That didn’t matter to us. We loved it, and we immediately fell in love with him. Cormac Karl “Max” Christie became captain of the Dallas Mavericks All-Name Team, then he started scorching nets everywhere in his first seven games in a Mavs uniform.
Season in review
“What if this young player we knew little to nothing about until he was traded to Dallas could become a foundational piece?” we began to think as Christie scored 15 or more points in his first seven games with the Mavs. The youngster hadn’t had a stretch with anywhere close to that level of production in his brief two-and-a-half-year NBA career. He played just one season of college ball before being drafted by the Lakers with the 35th overall pick of the 2022 NBA Draft.
“What if our new friend Cormac Karl could unexpectedly soften the calamitous kick to the junk that was the Dončić trade?” we asked each other in the comforting confines of our MMB Slack channel — the blog-atorial trust tree where no take is too hot and no haterade is too sour.
As it turns out, it was unfair to put all that evil on Cormac Karl.
After averaging 17.1 points on 47.2% shooting from 3-point range and five rebounds per game across his first seven, and becoming just the third Maverick ever (behind Kyrie Irving and Monta Ellis) to score 15 or more in each of his first seven games with the team, Christie struggled to maintain that high standard throughout the final 25 games of the season.
He averaged just 9.6 points per game in the Mavs’ final 25 regular-season games, which is much closer to what he averaged (8.5 points per game) in his 46 games with Los Angeles this season, before the trade. Clearly, his first seven games with the Mavericks were the exceptions to the rule of his standard rate of development.
But were they merely an aberration? Or were they glimpses into the type of player Christie can become in his time with the Mavs? The American Airlines Center doors will swing wide open for any and all blue-and-green-clad bucket-getters in 2025-26, when guard depth and scoring punch could come at a premium with Irving on the shelf until at least January with a reconnoitered ACL.
Best game
Max Christie #00 of the Dallas Mavericks drives to the basket during the game against the Houston Rockets on February 8, 2025 at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
Photo by Logan Riely/NBAE via Getty Images
Christie’s best game as a Maverick was his third, a 23-point outing in a 116-105 win over the Houston Rockets, who would go on to claim the 2-seed in the Western Conference playoffs, while the Mavs would eventually limp to a disappointing berth in the sad little Play-in thingy. He shot 5-of-10 from the field in 30 minutes of playing time, but that included 4-of-5 from 3-point land. He also defended.
Visions of sugar plums danced in the heads of Mavs fans everywhere, as Christie had connected on eight of his 12 attempts from deep in his first three games with the team. Too bad that he shot just 32.3% from deep in March and April to end the regular season.
His best game of the year came in a Lakers uniform, though, when he scored 28 points on 9-of-16 shooting, including 5-of-9 from 3-point range, to go along with a pair of steals in a 114-106 win against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Contract status
Christie signed a four-year, $32-million contract with the Lakers before the 2024-25 season started, but the fourth year (2027-28) is a player option. The Mavericks will have Christie on a pretty friendly number for two more seasons before he will get to decide whether to bet on himself and test the free agent waters prior to the 2027-28 campaign.
His cap hit is just over $7.7 million next season, and that gets bumped to just over $8.2 million for 2026-27.
Looking ahead
If Christie can become that kind of dependable 15-point contributor while locking down defensively, he’ll quickly ascend the Mavericks’ backcourt pecking order. He needs to develop the ability to consistently hit 3-pointers. At just 22, he’s already pretty consistent in the mid-range game and on the defensive end.
If he can’t, he’ll just be the Mavs’ next Josh Green. And no one is interested in watching those reruns.
Grade: B-
He got our hopes up with Maximum Christie to start his tenure in Dallas. Then he showed us Min Christie, and honestly, we could take it or leave it. The Mavericks will need young core guys like Christie and Dereck Lively II to hit another gear next season if they want to get back into playoff contention.