After what looked like a season-ending injury on New Year’s Day, Maxwell Lewis is ready to play tonight vs. Philly.
Maxwell Lewis will be available tonight when the Brooklyn Nets face the Philadelphia 76ers, nearly a month and a half after he had his Nets debut back on New Year’s Day vs. the Toronto Raptors. It was hardly auspicious. Terrifying might be a better way to describe it.
oh my god, Maxwell Lewis checks into the game, hits a three, and then suffers a potentially serious knee injury after Jakob Poeltl steps on his foot… pic.twitter.com/Gp2YoTLEhJ
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) January 2, 2025
It looked bad. As our Lucas Kaplan reported:
He was eventually carried off the floor by Brooklyn staffers, but not before spending minutes writhing in pain and grabbing the back of his left knee on the Scotiabank Arena floor. That is what season-ending and/or career-altering injuries look like, and not that there’s ever a good time for one of those, but it felt especially cruel for Lewis.
However, the worst case scenario was averted. A series of tests revealed it wasn’t a knee injury, but more a fracture of his left tibia. It wasn’t a season-ending injury either. He’s back tonight, a bit earlier than expected. Youth is always the best tonic.
At the Nets morning shootaround, Lewis spoke about his good fortune and how he’s happy to be back.
“I’m just blessed and glad it’s over. Now, I get to at least start what I was starting when it first happened on January 1,” Lewis said. “Just getting back to playing and my routine. It’s great.”
It wasn’t easy.
“I had a left tibia fracture on my left knee, so at first I was on crutches,” Lewis recalled. “I really wasn’t doing anything, just rehabbing, and I didn’t even get to go anywhere. I was just in the hotel and the facility, just been working on my rehab, keeping my mental right, watching basketball, watching film. Whenever I get my chance back, just to fall right back in, I don’t look like a sore thumb, just like everyone else, when I get back.”
Lewis was the final piece in the Lakers trade which went Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton to Los Angeles for D’Angelo Russell, three second rounders and him. Rather than assigning the Pepperdine product to the Long Island Nets, which was certainly an option, Sean Marks & co. gave him a black-and-white uniform to see what he can do.
The 6’7” 22-year-old was picked at No. 40 in the second round of the 2023 Draft after being projected as a late first rounder. In fact, the Lakers wanted him badly enough that they paid the Pacers $4 million in cash considerations just to move up seven spots in the second round to take him. They then signed him to a four-year, $7 million deal, the first two years guaranteed, overall a “significant commitment” for a player taken in the middle of the second round, as Tim MacMahon of ESPN reported at the time…
The Lakers made a significant commitment to make sure they could get a chance at Maxwell Lewis, sending ~$4m to Indiana to move up from 47 to 40. The rangy 6-7 forward out of Pepperdine made a major impression in his predraft workout with the team.
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) June 23, 2023
Since then, Lewis has played minimally in the NBA — a total of 131 minutes in 41 games over two years — spending almost all of his time in the G League with the South Bay Lakers. At the time of the trade, he was averaging 18.4 points and 6.9 rebounds in eight G League appearances.
Here’s some highlights from his best game three months ago:
There were reports that Lewis was not so much a throw-in, but rather a player the Nets were willing to take a chance on, as Keith Smith of Spotrac noted in summarizing the overall trade:
Maxwell Lewis is the kind of flyer that has paid off for Marks in the past. Lewis came into the 2023 NBA Draft as a potential wing shooter, with some defensive upside. He’s barely played in the NBA over two seasons, but has logged a decent amount of G League time. Last season, Lewis showed some 3&D potential with the South Bay Lakers. This year, his shooting has dropped off, but Lewis has shown a bit more on-ball playmaking ability.
And of course, he was caught up in the Lakers logjam at the wing. Lewis said today that he appreciates how the Nets coaching staff drives the team, something that might be familiar coming from the Lakers.
“Just winning,” he said in describing what players want. He explained, “We don’t have the best record, but they’re always preaching win and just play hard. (They) don’t look at it as we’re not going to make playoffs. They want to make the playoffs. They want to make it, win a championship. They want us to keep pushing like it’s a championship game every game. I love it.”
Brooklyn has little financial commitment to Lewis beyond this season when he’s being paid $1.9 million. He has a partial guarantee of $100,000 on next year’s $2.2 million salary and is non-guaranteed at $2.4 million in 2026-27 when he’ll be 24 years old. In other words, if he doesn’t work out or the Nets can’t fit him into their future plans, Lewis will cost them virtually nothing in NBA terms. If he does, they’ll have him at less than the cost of a vets minimum deal for the next two years.
That’s what teams do in rebuilds.
- Nets’ Maxwell Lewis ‘blessed’ to be back on the floor after injury – Sharif Philips-Keaton – USA TODAY