PHILADELPHIA — Some guys just pop. They demand your attention. Even a casual observer can pick them out. A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a gym and all of them say to each other: Who’s that guy?
Maybe it’s Tyrese Maxey. He sure looked like it on Monday night. The headlines today say that the big story was Ben Simmons versus the Sixers, but all I kept seeing was Maxey versus his ceiling. This was a preseason game, sure. But that’s part of the point. Superstars aren’t constrained by setting or situation. They call them standouts for a reason. The etymology is as linear as it gets. They stand out.
From the opening tip of the Sixers’ preseason opener, Maxey stood out. He took a pass at half court, glided to his right with a couple of dribbles, and pulled up from 27 feet. Next possession, he did the same thing, this time on the left side of the court. Next possession, the Nets tried to play defense, so he hesitated, crossed over, and floated a nine-footer over the help man and off the backboard. Top of the square, bottom of the net. He scored his team’s first eight points, and then he scored 12 more. By the time his night was over, he’d scored 20 points with three assists in 14 minutes. That’s the equivalent of 48 points and seven assists in 34 minutes. On a court that also included Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, he did the kind of things that those kind of guys do.
What if Maxey is that kind of guy? It’s an easy question to roll your eyes at. This was a preseason game. He was playing against a team that barely plays defense in regular-season games. He was not playing with Joel Embiid or James Harden, both of whom had the night off. But, man, he looked like a player who is poised to take another Great Leap Forward.
It’s a question worth asking. Preseason is a time for calibrating expectations. The Sixers enter this season in much the same way they’ve entered the last four: a 50.5 win line, 7.5-to-1 odds of making the finals, the fourth favorite in the East. The best-case scenario is supposed to look like this:
1. Harden is healthier, spryer, closer to the player he was two years ago than the one he was down the stretch in 2021-22.
2. The additions of P.J. Tucker, De’Anthony Melton, and Danuel House give the Sixers a much better defense, a much better bench, a much more sensible complement of offensive parts around Harden and Embiid.
Those are supposed to be the big variables, right?
Well, what if Maxey ends up being the biggest? What if he becomes the second star that the Sixers have long sought to pair with Embiid? What if we’ve been underselling him the whole time? Even those of us who have been his biggest advocates over the last couple of years?
I’m not going to sit here and make that prediction. Not after 14 minutes of a preseason game. Not without having seen him play a single possession alongside Harden, Embiid or Tucker. All I’m saying is that it might be time to start taking the thought seriously.
The most important piece of context here is the remarkable improvement that Maxey made between Year 1 and Year 2. Only two players in the NBA had a higher 3-point percentage than Maxey’s .427 last season. Both of those players attempted twice as many shots as Maxey did. Of the 25 qualifying shooters who connected on at least 40% of their 3s last season, Maxey is the only one who attempted fewer than 6.0 per 100 possessions. What if the efficiency remains and the volume increases?
The potential for volume is there. Think about it. Last year, Embiid averaged 3.7 3-point attempts per game. Danny Green averaged 4.4. Furkan Korkmaz averaged 4.0. Together, they combined to hit on 34.6% of them. That’s 4.1 makes per game on 12.1 attempts. What if five of those attempts go to Maxey? What if he did what he did last year and makes two of those five attempts? That right there would result in the Sixers scoring an extra 1.05 points per game. Granted, it would leave Maxey attempting 9.1 3s per game. That’s a lot. But Donovan Mitchell averaged 9.8. Jayson Tatum averaged 8.6. During his four-year peak in Houston, Harden averaged 10.5. What if Maxey actually turns out to be a lot closer to that caliber of a player than any of us thought?
To be clear, the player we saw last year was still a long way from that. But the player we saw last year entered November at 20 years old. The player we saw last year was coming off a rookie season in which he averaged 15.3 minutes per game and shot .301 from 3-point range. Last year, it would have sounded just as absurd to wonder if Maxey was capable of averaging 17.5 points per game and shooting .427 from 3-point range.
On the one hand, Maxey has some physical limitations. He doesn’t have Harden’s handle. He doesn’t have Tatum’s size or leaping ability. He doesn’t have the center of gravity or the strength that we tend to see from the truly elite. On the other hand, a lot of the other areas in which he has significant room for improvement are areas that can be improved through confidence, repetition, and hard work.
Against the Nets on Monday, we saw Maxey make several passes that suggested a player who is operating in less of a tunnel, a player who is in more control of his body, a player who has a better feel for and awareness of his on-court surroundings. He looked like a player who has been paying attention to Harden. Not only that, but we saw a player who is more comfortable being the man with the ball in his hands, with dictating to his opponent. We saw a player who has the potential to evolve into a true isolation scorer, instead of one who simply gets the ball and goes and waits until the last possible minute to figure things out. We saw a player who has both a plan and the confidence to execute it.
Again, it was only one game. A preseason game. Barely a quarter of one. But it sure was intriguing.
