It was the first time he played Arvydas Sabonis.
During the game, Christie remembers, the Trail Blazers' center stood at the elbow, caught the ball and tossed a swift, underhanded pass to a teammate, almost as if he were throwing a bowling ball down the lane. Christie almost did a double-take, he says now.
"Oh s---, wow!" Christie thought to himself.
Most centers passed from up high, above their shoulders, or offered a bounce pass, but in this moment -- and so many others to follow -- Arvydas was more creative, more daring. And Arvydas could step outside and shoot 3-pointers, too, which virtually no centers even attempted back then. Christie knew Arvydas was older, wracked by injuries and a sore back, ankles and troubled knees that left him lumbering up and down the court. "He had a torn Achilles, and he was still a monster," Christie says. "So you can imagine what he was as a young man."
After his playing career ended, Christie visited Pepperdine, to watch his alma mater play a Gonzaga team featuring Domantas. Christie immediately saw shades of Arvydas in Domantas' feel for the game, his ability to scan the court and move the ball, especially at his size.
Christie became a Kings assistant coach in 2021, and one year later, the team traded for Domantas, who had developed into an All-Star with the Indiana Pacers. Christie began working with him, and the connection wasn't lost on Christie: playing the father, coaching the son. And when asked about his early days of coaching Domantas, Christie points to the same spot on the floor that served as a flashpoint for his own memories of Arvydas: the elbow.
Domantas caught the ball and moved it above his head with one hand, scanning the floor for teammates, in the same way that his father had before him, reminding Christie too of center Vlade Divac and forward Chris Webber, his former teammates on the powerhouse Kings teams from the early 2000s. Both were big but skilled passers -- and if a teammate made a good screen and cut to the basket, the ball would find them. In Domantas, Christie saw the same type of potential.
And so, too, would coach Mike Brown.