OK Yeah Let's Talk About How Awesome Tyrese Maxey Has Been
Beyond the numbers, he gives the Sixers the most important thing at all: He gives them purpose on offense.
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.
Gotta love the Kings. For at least 15 years now, no matter who's been taking the court or sidelines for either them or us on a given night, we've never gone into a game against Sacramento going "ah shit, we're screwed tonight." That's half the reason why going into a game at the Golden 1 Center last night with literally none of our starters from the end of last season available -- as Godner pointed out on Twitter, our highest paid player on the floor was Furkan Korkmaz at a whopping $4.6 mil -- I still felt like at worst, we had a 50/50 chance of emerging victorious. (Which we did, 102-94. Kings stink!)
The other half of the reason, though? Tyrese Maxey.
I haven't really written much about Maxey this year -- at least not since he turned the corner on a rough start to the season about four games in. You certainly haven't needed me to; over the past couple weeks; he's been the talk of the town, as popular a Sixer as has ever led the team over a 2-6 stretch. Look through any window in the Delaware Valley this week and you'll see smilin' faces all around on account of Mad Maxey, a source of unequivocal pride and joy. Relatively speaking, I haven't really considered myself a Maxey guy -- not like how I've been a Matisse or Shake guy, anyway -- since my default approach to No. 0 has been one of cautious not-too-much-too-soondom, if only in response to the folks who wanted to make a golden idol out of Mike Muscala the first time Tyrese hung 39 on the Nuggets. He's a second-year guy with exponentially more responsibility than he had as a rookie, naturally there would be a learning curve, an adjustment period, a wall.
Nope! Nope, nope nope. Maxey's adjustment period appears to have lasted for those first four games only; since then he's scored in double figures every night (and 20+ for seven of the last 10), shot 50% or better from the field in 12 out of 14 games, and handed out 71 total assists while only turning the ball over 15 times. He has pushed the pace early, made big plays late, and locked down on defense when needed. He's shooting more, getting to the line more, trusting his teammates and himself more. He still makes occasional mistakes and has semi-obvious areas for improvement, but if this was the player Tyrese Maxey was going to be by the time of his second contract, we'd be thrilled; the fact that he's this player by the time of his second season feels like taking one of those Candy Land shortcuts.
And beyond the numbers, he gives the Sixers the most important thing at all: He gives them purpose on offense. That's why you can still feel confident in the Sixers against a subpar Kings team, even with him and no other first-fivers out there: He may not be 2008 Chris Paul, but give Tyrese Maxey the ball and four half-competent teammates, and generally you can figure on him making something happen. He gets to the rim almost at will, he can always pull up at the elbow or deep wing, and he's getting real close tinkering with that stepback three off the dribble -- the thing that could really elevate his ceiling to Grand Central Terminal levels. He might not be an aggressive enough passer just yet, as folks who've started to "well, actually..." his low turnover count will attest, but he's starting to find the seams in the defense, and making the Joel-like pass that sets the offense in motion and leads to an open basket three dudes later.
Last night wasn't even that great a game in the Tyrese New World Order -- he got in foul trouble early, badly struggled to score in the third, missed all his shots from deep, and largely let Shake Milton take the lead down the stretch. But he still posted a pretty stellar final stat line: 24 points (8-22 FG), four assists, two steals, no turnovers. And he's starting to do the thing that star scorers do where even their misses can be productive: Several of his layups that failed to drop in the third and fourth attracted two defenders and led to Andre Drummond being available for easy offensive rebounds and occasional putback attempts -- if only Drummond had some semblance of a second jump, it'd probably have been more. It was an off night for Maxey, and he was still probably the biggest reason they won shorthanded on the road. Mama, he's crazy.
Given all these numbers and accomplishments, even on a team that's losing two thirds of its games while its actual MVP candidate is sidelined, it's not surprising that Maxey has pretty quickly catapulted to the highest approval rating any Sixer has had since said face of the franchise. But it's more than that, even: It's that Tyrese is the first guy of his type we've had for the entire Process era. Obviously we've coveted an undersized, hoop-getting sparkplug guard basically since Iverson, and even though Maxey has internalized some percentage of Philly's proud legacy of non-shooting point guards, he's still better and bolder at putting ball in basket than any other guard we've had since Our Once and Always Dark Lord Sam Hinkie took over. He gets that stepback down, maybe there's not so much point in trading him for Damian Lillard after all.
He's also just the first young player that we've had pop like this who didn't come saddled with franchise player-level expectation in the first place. It was great when Joel Embiid -- and yes, Ben Simmons -- were so great so early on, but we expected them to be great, needed them to be great, pretty much right away. Top three picks don't get to be pleasant surprises; they're either contributors right away (and stars eventually) or they're busts. Finding Tyrese with the 21st pick in a middling draft is like finding a rare early R.E.M. bootleg in a used CD rack; you probably would've settled for a $4.99 copy of Monster, but hey word.. There's just no downside with him right now: He's young, he's cheap, he's under contract, he's got still-untapped upside, he's likeable, he looks cool, my mother calls him "son." It's good vibes only.
It won't be forever. A shooting slump will hit, or trade rumors will creep into the mix, or the games will get a little too big and expose his shortcomings more than he or we are comfortable with, or he’ll just get a bad haircut or try to brand himself with a lame nickname or something. No player gets to have a 100% approval rating for all time. But considering how lost this season could have already felt -- between all the injuries, breakthrough COVID cases, and whatever's going on with No. 25 this week -- I can't really properly say how much it's meant to have Tyrese there to be a saving grace every night, and to give us at least a chance at winning in nearly every game we play. We're all Maxey guys at this point. And if Sacramento hasn't been embarrassed into overpaying for Ben Simmons by this point, they should be ashamed of themselves.