Max Effect

Upon Jason Maxiell’s entry into Thursday night’s win at Cleveland, the TNT crew of Marv Albert and Steve Kerr went on a riff about how well he’d played over the past week and how he was starting to draw comparisons to Charles Barkley. The comparison seemed to amuse them.

“Let’s not get carried away,” Kerr said at one point, going on to make the undeniably valid point that Barkley’s superior ballhandling and surprising end-to-end speed, combined with his space-clearing bulk and explosion around the basket, made him a package unique in NBA history.

And then Maxiell flashed his own space-clearing bulk and explosion around the rim, making one of those dunks that surprise you – one of those “how did he get here from there so fast” dunks. And he did it with Drew Gooden draped all over him, drawing a flagrant foul in the process. A little later, Maxiell’s attempt at a reverse dunk so impressed Kerr that he was willing to overlook the fact he traveled in the process. And suddenly the TNT guys were revisiting their decision to smirk at the Maxiell-as-Barkley comparison.

Maxiell again left his imprint on another game the Pistons won, a convincing win over a team that fancies itself a challenger to Detroit’s Eastern Conference supremacy. He played 17 minutes and scored 11 points – 11 points in a game where every point came grudgingly – to go with three rebounds and a blocked shot that got the Pistons off to their dominant and decisive fourth-quarter run. He also got to the foul line five times, a significant and overlooked component of Maxiell’s package.

Perhaps the most intriguing development of the Pistons’ season is Jason Maxiell and how large a niche he can carve for himself over the final four months of the regular season and into the playoffs. What’s the next step in his development?

Consistency must come first, of course. He’s only going to get so many minutes a game. If everybody’s healthy and Antonio McDyess is himself and not the imposter who showed up for the first eight weeks of the season – more the Antonio McDyess who dropped 11 fourth-quarter points on Cleveland and led all rebounders with 11 – then the 17 Maxiell got Thursday is about the best he can expect, most nights. So he has to hit the ground running when he gets in there.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Flip Saunders figures out how best to use him. Because Maxiell is so adept at drawing fouls – he averaged nearly 10 attempts in the preseason, most in the NBA, while playing about half the game – it might make sense to bring him in at the start of the second and fourth quarters and call his number early in an attempt to get into the penalty situation first and quicker.

Especially with McDyess struggling, the Pistons’ second unit is often starved for a scoring option. Throwing the ball to Maxiell could change the whole complexion of the second unit’s offensive personality. If what we saw out of McDyess in the Cleveland second half is the start of his reawakening, so much the better. The attention Maxiell should generate in the low post figures to free McDyess for those baseline, high- and mid-post jumpers at which he normally excels.

And if they both get rolling, maybe Flip Murray will find the space he needs to do what the Pistons envisioned he would add – a slashing scorer who accumulates points in bunches. And maybe it happens that way for Carlos Delfino, too.

Basketball, like no other sport, is sensitive to such ripple effects, its chemistry more volatile by far than football or basketball. And that’s why Maxiell’s progress – and the unique dimensions he adds to a team that even without him saw itself as the team to beat in the East – makes for such compelling theater as the Pistons evolve over the final four months of the regular season and into the playoffs.