What Does the Labaron Philon Jr. Pick Mean for Tyrese Maxey (And the Team's Direction in General)?
Spike wonders if the next few years are just about keeping Max from getting too Mad.
Mike mentioned on our NBA Draft night podcast that after drafting Labaron Philon Jr. (who was #2 on my YouTube Big Board) with the 22nd pick, he believes there’s a real possibility that the Sixers trade Tyrese Maxey.
Now let’s put aside the “Mike said this” part of it, because we all know Mike was being emotional, and while I do believe he believed it when he said it, he’ll likely be much more measured on the next episode.
But it did get me thinking about what the next three years of the Sixers are really about, assuming that Joel Embiid isn’t going anywhere.
The first instinct is to say “well let the young players grow.” But as of now, there are not really many substantial young players on the Sixers. There is VJ Edgecombe, absolutely. But the minute you get past him, we’re in Barlow and Edwards territory. And while we hope both of those guys get better, the improvement of those guys cannot be what the team is about over the next couple of years.
And Tyrese Maxey… well, he’s not that young. He’s young in the grand scheme of things of course, and he’s got a long career ahead of him, but he’s in his prime. He’s on his second contract, was All-Third Team NBA, and is now firmly past the “watch him grow” phase.
So the next couple of years might just be about getting through them.
And that’s where we get to Philon. Because if the team isn’t considering trading Maxey (I don’t think they are), then the next couple of years has to be about making Tyrese Maxey’s life easy and fun enough that he doesn’t notice they have no chance of competing for a title at the moment and doesn’t get antsy and want to leave. Make Maxey like coming to work every day.
One way the Sixers can do this, is by not forcing him to play 43 minutes a game because the Sixers do not have anyone else who is capable of being a primary ball handler. While you could look at the Philon pick and say “well that’s a guy who can’t play with Maxey so they must be moving Maxey,” I think you can also look at it and say “that’s a guy who probably can’t play with Maxey, so Maxey gets to sit on the bench for 16 minutes a night.”
Team Ricky
Here’s our draft night pod. It’s a doozie.
Team Non Ricky
Here’s Sixers Adam’s annual free agency primer.
KOC was on my WIP show to talk about Philon.
I can appreciate trying to rationalize selecting a Maxey clone in Philon as our only pick in this draft. That’s what we do as Sixers fans, devoid of a title for 43 years. We rationalize things that don’t, on the surface, seem to represent the smartest move by a team with a history of dumb moves.
I think you’re right that there is very limited “young talent” on the Sixers. For me, young talent represents either future starter or current starter with lots of room to grow. Heading into this draft the only person you could cite as young Sixers talent was VJ. The hope was to use this draft to add one more player to that list (maybe two, if the team managed to move back into the second round). Like you, I think Maxey is no longer a “young” player. He’s a player in his prime, about to enter his seventh NBA season. Stated differently, the average length of an all-star level player in the NBA is about 12 seasons. So Maxey is literally smack in the middle of his career. His prime. For a guy like him who relies a lot on his quickness, as he gets older that diminishes and we can’t know what that does to his ability to dominate – or, with his heavy minutes, how his body holds up.
Thus, I think Mike is right that the selection of Philon is one where it allows Gansey and Nelson the flexibility to eventually move Maxey. He’s the only guy on this roster that could fetch a rebuild-bolstering return in a trade. I just don’t see how Maxey’s career timetable lines up with the Sixers current mess. Maxey doesn’t really have three years to piss away, waiting for Embiid’s contract to go off the books. Because it’s not like at that point the Sixers absolutely have a roster on the brink of being great and just need one or two pieces to shoot into the top of the league. Between now and then they’re not going to have much money to spend to significantly improve around Maxey, VJ and Embiid. They get some money back in two years when PG’s contract is done, but again, it will still take time for any new roster construction to gel – and you’d still have Embiid on the roster potentially getting in the way of the new style of play. All that would be time off the back end of Maxey’s prime. Personally, I think the smarter move is to trade Maxey at the height of his prime and focus on getting new talent more sync’d-up on compatible career timelines.
I disagree that Maxey is so stupid that he’s not going to “notice” his team is uncompetitive. Philadelphia is not going to let him just have “fun” while the team languishes in the middle of the conference. This city isn’t known for celebrating players having fun with .500 team records. As it already stands, people like you have begun asking when Maxey is going to shoulder more of the blame for the playoff failures. It only intensifies for Maxey as Embiid ages out of any sort of reliance on him to be the primary star on the team.
While it may look good on the computer screen to type that we just need a guy like Philon to allow Maxey to sit for 16 minutes a night, it’s actually not something Maxey didn’t already have LAST season. Before he got traded, Jared McCain was averaging over 16 minutes a game as Maxey’s backup. And after he got traded, Cam Payne was signed out of the freaking Euroleague to be the backup PG and ALSO averaged 17 minutes per game. So last season we had both a second-year player and then a vet from the Euroleague have no problem being available for 17 mpg – and yet Nurse STILL played Maxey about 38 mpg.
Bottom line, I don’t think we needed a first round pick to contribute useable minutes at point guard. There are about 35 free agents point guards on the market this summer. It was within the realm of possibility that a couple of those free agent PGs could have been signed for small contracts and do for the 2026-27 Sixers what Cam Payne did last season. Rookie NBA point guards are a little like rookie tight ends in the NFL. Takes them a couple of seasons to learn the league and the complexities of the position. It’s pretty rare that a point guard, especially one taken well outside the lottery, is a rookie star in the NBA. The last point guard, selected outside of the top 15 in the draft, to win NBA Rookie-of-the-Year was Mark Jackson (#18 overall) in 1988. And Nick Nurse isn’t the most likely coach to be patient with rookie PG growing pains.
So, to me, the best reason to have chosen Philon instead of the more obvious needs in the frontcourt was to be able to deal Maxey in the summer of 2027. Give him a year to tutor Philon and then let rebuild in Sixersville commence.