MAVS NEWS:

[DanSchwartzgan]

@sixfivelando
Max Christie on the court, Klay off the court
+7.64 Net Rating
121.43 Offensive Rating
113.79 Defensive Rating

Klay Thompson on the court, Max off the court
-26.20 Net Rating
90.98 Offensive Rating
117.19 Defensive Rating



It's early in the season and the small sample size stuff is always wonky but it fits the eye test. Despite Klay being a huge negative, the starting lineup is still a net positive. The simplest solution is inserting a PG for Klay, right? Or maybe just inserting Max?  

As for Klay's game. Part of me thinks he's declined quite a bit and part of me wants to think he'd look a lot better playing alongside a real PG at all times. At least that's some copium for the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, he went from adequate to bad pretty quickly. 

Either way, I stand by my statement that Max is a better player than Klay at this point in their careers. Klay is a notoriously slow starter though, and I do think he will have stretches that will help this team win games.

I saw this and started to post it myself.  One thing I wonder, but am too lazy to look up…is Max getting more of the minutes where Kidd is playing a PG while Klay has gotten more of the non-PG minutes.  It still leaves you with a chicken/egg situation.  Is DLo helping Max’s numbers or is it the other way around.  You also have to wonder if Klay is the culprit in the problems with the lineups with all the bigs or a victim of those lineups.  

I think some of this will sort itself out eventually.  Kidd makes frustrating lineup choices early in the year every season, but he eventually tends to get to things that work.  He’s tended to close with Max almost from day one, so he clearly values what he brings.  My favorite lineup would be Kyrie/Max/PJ/Flagg/Lively, but that isn’t realistic as a starting or closing lineup if AD is healthy.  It is more realistic to swap out AD for Lively.  If you do that, then Gafford and Klay is the logical outgoing trade package if you aren’t going to ever trade AD.