Max Lewis: 2023 NBA Draft Scouting Report
Lewis is burgeoning with potential. But there's still a long road to harnessing that upside, complicating his draft stock
One of my bad habits in life is to incessantly quote movies or TV shows. The obscure quotes are always the most enjoyable, especially the ones that are unknown to those around me or unearth memories from years ago.
When thinking about Maxwell Lewis, the wing out of Pepperdine, I can’t help but feel like I’m Eric Murphy in Entourage being sold a sales pitch from the fictional movie producer Bob Ryan. Lewis is 6’7” with long arms, a beautiful jumper, self-creation ability, explosive athleticism, and all the tools to be an impactful defender for the modern NBA.
What if I told you that you could get Lewis in the mid-to-late first round? Is that something you might be interested in?
Who wouldn’t be?! The NBA is a wing-based league now, where athleticism, switchability, and positional size are all valued. He can knock down spot-up jumpers to play off the ball, create his own with some impressive step-backs, and use his length to stifle players in isolation. It’s a winning formula in today’s game.
Coming into the season, Lewis was a rising sophomore at Pepperdine with a lot of raw tools and upside. There were flashes from his freshman season, and plenty of scouts who were already turned onto his upside. After all, the WCC did produce two lottery picks a year ago in Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. It was plausible that Lewis could be next in line to make the leap.
A hot start to the season only propelled those musings. We wrote about Lewis this January in the midst of a tremendous 18-game stretch. Even then, we were somewhat skeptical about how raw he was on defense and the path that would lie ahead to harness his offensive skills in a translatable fashion.
Since writing that article, Lewis’ production cratered. Over his final twelve games, Lewis averaged 13.1 points on 37/23/72 splits, posted a 46.6% TS%, and had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio (2.9 assists, 3.6 turnovers). The Waves lost 16 of their final 18 games, and Max really struggled to adjust to the extra attention he received as Pepperdine’s top option.
To be fair, there were some small gains to his portfolio over the stretch run of the season that assuaged some of the worries we had in January. But the up-and-down nature of his season underscores just how far away he is and how much the inconsistency could catch up to him.
Lewis is burgeoning with potential. But there's still a long road to harnessing that upside, complicating his draft stock and where he’ll end up in the eyes of NBA decision-makers.
Lewis will be a fantastic case study in so many facets. He’s a raw, underdeveloped prospect, and there will be a challenge in valuing him against more reliable and proven role players. He’s in the dichotomy of being best as a top option but likely needs to scale down his play for the next level. He’ll either be seen as a high-upside defender because of his tools or a low-upside one because of how far behind he is on that end of the floor.
Lewis lands himself into every fascinating philosophical debate around modern player evaluation. He is too good of a prospect to just be siphoned off as a ‘not my cup of tea’ kind of guy and forces scouts to grapple with these questions and their own philosophies. His archetype is too important, and he’s shown too many positive shooting flashes, athletic highlights, and too much growth over the past twelve months to be ignored.
Yes, Bob Ryan. He absolutely sounds like a player I might be interested in.