Michigan State Basketball: Max Christie makes bold move ahead of NBA draft

Max Christie finally broke his silence about why he decided to remain in the NBA draft instead of returning to Michigan State basketball.

Max Christie made a decision this week that rocked the Michigan State basketball program.

After just one season with Tom Izzo and the Spartans, the former five-star decided it was time for him to move on to the NBA, staying in the draft and hiring an agent.

It was a surprising decision based on the ups and downs of his freshman season where he averaged just under 10 points per game and shot just 38 percent from the field. He hit a “freshman wall” in the middle of the season which led to his numbers dropping a bit.

Even though he seemed to struggle with his confidence during the middle to end of the season, he apparently isn’t anymore.

Finally breaking his silence since for the first time since the season ended and he made his decision to stay in the draft, Christie spoke to Matt Charboneau on Thursday at the NBA draft combine and stated that Izzo had been nothing but supportive of him throughout this process.

Christie also talked about his decision to skip the scrimmage at the combine and the answer was a little surprising, but not lacking in confidence.

That’s right, Christie skipped the very important live scrimmage at the combine because he felt confident that he would be selected in the 20-40 range regardless. That’s a bold move.

Some teams may be turned off by this decision to forgo the scrimmage as it would have given them a better sense of his level of competitiveness but he remains confident. Is he getting bad advice or has he been promised by certain teams to be selected?

Either way, this is a bold move by Christie and it’ll be interesting to see how it impacts his draft stock.