Film Study: Breaking down Max Christie’s summer league improvements

Lakers’ wing Max Christie showed flashes of potential during his rookie season — he was a Mcdonald’s All-American in high school and five-star recruit, after all — to become not only a much-needed “3-and-D” wing but potentially even more than that. The slight-to-moderate improvements we saw from him throughout the season only furthered that belief, and even led some to believe that he may have been able to contribute during the playoffs, regardless of his green-behind-the-ears status, but alas.

Accordingly, Christie’s sophomore season comes with a bit more expectations, and those expectations began with seeing how he would play at summer league and showcase some of the things he was working on during the early off-season.

Well, Laker fans certainly got their wish as Christie displayed a multi-faceted progression in his game. I took a closer look at the film in this video.

The obvious grain of salt is that summer league competition is not close to what Max will see night in and night out in the NBA. However, you can still look for attributes and improvements that are translatable to a higher level of play, and we certainly saw that from Max — there are some players in summer league who are clearly “too good” for it, and Christie was certainly one of those.

It’s a great sign, and all others also point toward Max being a rotation player this season. If he can continue to improve at this rate, the Lakers have potentially unearthed another gem.

Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, is a youth basketball coach at the U12 level and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA in which he further combines his movement expertise and fitness training. Combining his background in biomechanics, movement science, and learning science - he consults in a variety of sports including basketball on movement mechanics and skill acquisition. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC and analyzes the Lakers from a skills & medical perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance.