How come I keep getting nil on point-max?

[grocery_stocker]

When I go
(point-max)

I get:
672

In the emacs echo area.

However, when I do
(let (start (point-max)))

I get:
nil

And when I do
(let (start (point-max))
        (message "The value is: %d" start))

I get
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Format specifier doesn't match
argument t$
  message("The value is: %d" "nil")
  (let (start (point-max)) (message "The value is: %d" start))
  eval((let (start (point-max)) (message "The value is: %d" start)))
  eval-last-sexp-1(nil)
  eval-last-sexp(nil)
* call-interactively(eval-last-sexp)



Chad