Don’t Even Think About It: Why Moving Joel and PG Massively Lowers the Sixers’ Ceiling

Beckett on how the last two Raptors games provide a perfect case study for why Maxey and the Sixers still need their two aging stars.

Throughout this season, there has been trade chatter about getting off the Joel Embiid and Paul George contracts, most notably on the last pod where Spike and Mike discussed whether they would accept a Trae Young-like salary dump.

Well, we were just provided the ideal case study to evaluate what the team would look like without them. The Sixers played the Toronto Raptors on back-to-back nights, with the only big change between games coming from the addition of Joel and PG back into the lineup. The outcome? A 29-point halftime lead that ended in a comfortable win and a performance in direct contrast to what we saw the night before. These two games show exactly what the Sixers would lose if they moved on from Joel and PG.

To get out ahead of it, a lot of that difference is due to the Sixers shooting a gazillion percent from everywhere in game two (the Sixers’ 68.45% true shooting on Monday was the highest in a game this season) — it’s not hard to look better when the shots are falling.

But it’s not just that; these are impactful players when available. Joel is playing like prime Boogie Cousins and Paul George has settled in as an (admittedly overpaid) third or even fourth option, where his off-ball capabilities and IQ can excel. They are making a difference on the court, and the numbers bear that out.

Maxey on his own has been very impressive, carrying the team to a +2.5 net rating (point differential per 100 possessions) without either of Joel or PG on the floor — that’s not contender-level dominance, but it’s pretty good. We have been begging for even net-neutral minutes when Joel sits for years, and we have finally gotten it through Maxey’s evolution. Maxey has also had to do this while bearing an incredible load, with 731 minutes holding up the offense without his costars, equivalent to over 15 full NBA games.

Now an intuitive reader like yourself might look at those numbers and say: “Beckett, you’re clearly contradicting your title. This just shows Maxey is perfectly capable of carrying lineups on his own, so we don’t need to deal with Joel and PG at all anymore!”

However, even if you believe Maxey should be the clear first-option star — which I do in fact agree with — the additional elevation Joel and PG provide to Maxey’s minutes on and most notably off the floor provide unbelievable value.

Even with VJ Edgecombe’s unbelievable start to the year, take Maxey off the floor without replacing that production and the Sixers have collapsed. This is where the Raptors games become revealing. In Sunday’s loss, the Sixers won Maxey’s 45 minutes by 17 and lost the 8 minutes he sat by 18, a difference that would make even 2019-Raptors-series Greg Monroe proud. Even an overhead view of the full season sees them falling to a -12.7 net rating without any of the top three, solidly worse than the league-bottom Washington Wizards (who are REALLY bad by the way, on par with the Process Sixers).

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However, add in Joel and PG to share the load and suddenly they can survive without Maxey just fine. In Monday’s win, the Sixers won Maxey’s 35 minutes by +13 and lost the 13 minutes he was off the floor by… zero!

The macro scale numbers once again back this up. Joel and PG shared minutes without Maxey have had an elite +16.2 net rating, though admittedly in a limited 62 minutes. Add in the more robust and meaningful sample (229 minutes) of Joel and PG sharing minutes with Maxey, and we see a strong +7.1 net rating, on par with the NBA’s third-best Boston Celtics (who have been annoyingly good).

This shows up not just in scoring, but in how the offense functions. Let’s take a more applied look at how through a film lens. Compare these two screen grabs of Maxey drives from Sunday’s loss (top) and Monday’s win (bottom):

The shell of the defense is unbelievably more spread out in the second frame with the biggest change simply being the addition of Paul George into the strong-side corner instead of Barlow. There is a clear difference in the spacing afforded to Maxey when Nurse is forced to rely on less-consistent shooters. He has to both shoot more and work harder for his shots, all while getting the full attention of the opposing defense. Add in Joel and PG, and all of a sudden there are other threats to account for, which helps open up their offense.

Joel in particular makes an impact here. The Sixers are dead-last in the NBA in assists per 100 possessions at 24.1, but add in Joel and that number goes up. The team improves to 25.7 assists per 100 possessions with Joel on the floor (which would be 17th in the NBA) and a rough 23.6 with him off. The ability to put the opposing team into rotation with his gravity helps get the ball moving effectively and lets Maxey shine more off-ball, where he is the most effective.

This also isn’t all about Maxey. VJ has been awesome, but he is not yet built to be the No. 2 on a contending-level team, and his usage skyrockets without Joel and PG on the floor. The most recent example is in these Raptors games. In Sunday’s loss he was inefficient, scoring 17 points on 6-19 shooting with a high 23.6% usage rate. In Monday’s win he was far better, scoring 15 points on 5-7 shooting with just a 12.7% usage rate.

A lot of this difference in efficiency is due to the types of shots he gets. Even if VJ’s pull-up scoring is ahead of schedule, these shots are still far more inefficient than when he gets set up (43.5% eFG off the dribble versus 59.8% eFG on catch and shoot). When he is pushed into a bigger role, he is forced into a ton of these shots, as 15 of his 19 attempts in Sunday’s loss were self-created, compared to just 3 of his 7 in Monday’s win. That role adjustment has ripple effects down the whole roster, shifting players into positions where they can excel.

All that to say, as much as it is scary to rely on players as aging and injury-prone as Joel and PG, they are needed if our goal is still to compete at the highest level. A trade for more available pieces likely gives a more stable floor at the cost of the ceiling, and a salary dump is out of the question. Long-term, the Maxey and VJ backcourt is the future, but for now we need to enjoy the old guys still having a legitimately positive impact. Because if the Sixers still want a championship-caliber ceiling, moving on from Joel and PG isn’t a necessary step forward — it’s a crippling step backward.