Lakers News: JJ Redick Will Be Invested In Rest Of Max Christie's Career
Yesterday at 04:28 PM
The Los Angeles Lakers trading for Luka Doncic was a no-brainer move, even if it came at the tough cost of losing Anthony Davis and Max Christie.
The Lakers and Dallas Mavericks are set to square off for the first time since the trade on Tuesday night, which will naturally lead to excitement for Doncic and his teammates.
On the Mavericks side though, Davis is currently out with an injury so will not be able to play on Tuesday. Christie, on the other hand, makes his return to L.A. to face his former team.
Christie has taken his game to another level since going to Dallas, making progress on the potential everyone in the Lakers organization knew he had.
Ahead of the matchup, Lakers head coach JJ Redick talked about Christie and how he is excited to see him continuing to grow even though he is on a new team.
“Max, since the day I took the job, was someone that I was very high on,” Redick said. “Really him and Jalen (Hood-Scifino) were the first two guys we got our hands on because we weren’t with the Summer League team all that much so Bronny and DK were kind of with that group. Max and Jalen were with us in Summer League and just feel very invested for the rest of my life in the rest of his career.
“He’s someone who throughout our time together was given more opportunities and became someone who starred in his role. He has a lot of freedom in Dallas that frankly he didn’t have here. At some point he would’ve had it here, but really happy to see him succeeding.”
In eight games with the Mavericks, Christie is averaging 15.3 points on 50% shooting, which is almost double what he averaged with the Lakers before the trade. Christie had really come on in his finally handful of games with L.A. after being moved into the starting lineup though, so another leap could be expected.
That’s not even to mention Christie’s defense, which has been great all year. It will be interesting to see how much he is matched up with Doncic on Tuesday in what should be a super competitive environment.
JJ Redick expects Luka Doncic to control Lakers’ offense
When the Lakers play the Mavericks, Luka Doncic should have the ball in his hands a majority of the night, which JJ Redick said will be the case moving forward.
"I think Luka needs to be the guy that controls the offense," he said. "And Bron and AR, because we're going to stagger everybody, they're going to have their times to be on the ball. But all three of those guys are very intelligent basketball players, and we can create mismatches. We can get teams in the blender. And a lot of times, that's how we're able to generate, I thought, some great looks in the first half. Made some early and then went cold. We felt like we were getting good offense throughout the first half."
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