Guerschon Yabusele Has Brought Out the Best in Tyrese Maxey
Dan Olinger on why our point guard's recent breakout is at least partly due to his new partner at the pivot.
Guerschon Yabusele has been full of surprises this season.
From becoming the Sixers’ best three-point shooter for the first month of the season, to briefly emerging a Wemby pseudo-stopper, Yabusele has deservedly danced his way into the hearts of Philly fans. There’s a reasonable argument he’s the best value contract in the entire NBA, given he’s one of only a handful of players making less money this year than some of the people watching from the crowd.
But the latest surprise Yabusele has brought might be the most important of all. In both of the team’s past two victories, the minutes with Yabusele at the five were a big reason why, not only because of how well he’s played, but also because of how his presence has greatly benefitted Tyrese Maxey.
It started in the game against San Antonio, right after Joel Embiid’s dramatic ejection late in the first half. Around the same time, Andre Drummond was ruled out with an injury, leaving the Sixers extremely limited options at the center position. Thus, Nick Nurse put the thick Frenchman at the 5, and what’s resulted ever since has been nothing short of extraordinary.
The Sixers outscored the Spurs 63-45 in the 19 minutes spent with Maxey running point and Yabusele as the center. Two days later on Christmas, lineups with Maxey at the 1 and Yabusele at the 5 won 47-25 against the Celtics in 13 minutes played. In total, the Sixers have a 110-70 scoring edge this past week when Maxey plays with the Dancing Bear at center.
This is because that lineup allows the Sixers to play true five-out offense. All five players on the court can spot up and hit an open three, or attack a closeout and drive to the rim, as the other three on the court often include Kelly Oubre, Caleb Martin, and one of Paul George, Kyle Lowry, or Reggie Jackson. Yabusele shooting 38.5% from behind the line this season is one thing. Even Mo Bamba last year shot 39% on triples. The difference is that Yabusele has weaponized his three-point shot even further, punishing anyone who over pursues by ripping hard to the right and attacking the basket.
With defenses on full alert whenever Yabusele catches the ball on the perimeter, Maxey’s driving lanes become fully realized. When he’s out there with Embiid or Drummond (the former who prefers operating inside the arc, and the latter who can only play inside), there’s always a big roving shot blocker near the rim, waiting to help and alter Maxey’s shot whenever he drives to the cup. Compare that to these plays against Boston with Yabu:
Kristaps Porzingis wants to crash down and help, but he’s slow to react since the fear of a Yabusele three anchors him to the top of the key. Instead, it’s Reggie Jackson as the teammate waiting in the dunker spot, and his defender in Sam Hauser isn’t the same at-rim defensive deterrent.
Overall, Maxey is still at his absolute best playing next to Embiid, as has been the case for every Sixers player since 2017. However, in those minutes where the big guy needs a rest, Maxey looks far more comfortable when the team goes small and spreads the floor with a big man who can be trusted on the perimeter like Yabu.
Per Cleaning the Glass, the Sixers have a +5.0 Net Rating in 638 possessions this season when Maxey is at the point, Yabusele plays the 5, and Drummond is off the court. Conversely, lineups with Maxey and Drummond on the floor while Yabusele is on the bench have a -15.8 Net Rating in 481 possessions.
The spaced-out lineups play off of and accentuate Maxey’s greatest strengths. Maxey doesn’t have to worry about getting the ball to Yabusele inside through tight spaces. Rather, he can constantly attack all the open space that Yabusele and his other three teammates create, and either score at the rim, or kick the ball back out to them on the perimeter (i.e. the types of passes he is best at this point in his career, as opposed to tricky lay-down passes near the rim).
These lineups, of course, have their weaknesses. Though being able to switch 1 through 5 on defense is quite nice, Yabusele is not much of a rim protector, meaning that if the shortened Sixers ever lose contain of the ball on the perimeter, it’s almost always ending in a good shot for the opposing offense. Additionally, a lot of the success in Boston was based around Martin transforming into 21st century Andrew Toney. The likelihood of Caleb shooting 7-for-9 from three against any other of the 28 teams in the league isn’t very high.
However, there’s something to note in terms of how aggressive these lineups were, and how they forced both the Spurs and the Celtics to react. In both games, those teams eventually took Wemby and Porzingis off Yabusele and instead had them defend Martin, in a desperate attempt to keep their best rim protectors from constantly having to worry about the three-point line. It’s how you know what the Sixers were doing was working — their opponents were the ones who felt they needed to adjust in order to have a chance at survival.
There have been a lot of key contributors to the team’s 8-3 run over the past 11 games, with the most glaringly obvious one being improved health from their best players. But another has been Maxey ever so slowly breaking out of the rut he was in to open his fifth season. He’s up to 33.7% on threes after hovering around 25% for well over a month, and over his past five games, he’s averaging 32 points and seven assists per night. Not all of that can be attributed to Yabusele-at-the-five lineups, but the move has certainly amplified the things Maxey was already great at, rather than forcing the young guard to adjust to his own teammates.
With how strange the 2024-25 campaign has already been, there’s no predicting who will ever be consistently available and at what capacity. But for the time being, with injuries hampering their ulterior backup big options, the Yabusele-at-center lineups might just be the key that keeps Maxey playing at an All-Star level as the Sixers hope to climb back up the Eastern Conference standings.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.