July 23, 2024
Kyle Ross/USA TODAY Sports
Tyrese Maxey met with the media on Tuesday morning for the first time since signing a five-year deal to remain with the Sixers for the long haul.
Over the last half-decade or so, nearly every key player the Sixers have had has drawn ire at some point.
Joel Embiid has powered through it all, but the former NBA MVP has quite a few critics after missing countless postseason games with injuries and coming up short in a fair share of the ones he has played in. Ben Simmons never developed a jumper, passed up an open dunk in a Game 7 and forced his way out of Philadelphia in emphatic and embarrassing fashion. Tobias Harris spent five years on one of the most harmful contracts in recent NBA history. Jimmy Butler refused to shoot three-pointers for the better part of multiple months to prove a point and then bolted for Miami at his first chance. James Harden came up small in back-to-back playoff eliminations before demanding a trade in arguably even more emphatic and embarrassing fashion.
And then there is Tyrese Maxey.
Maxey, who spoke to the media on Tuesday morning for the first time since inking a five-year contract worth more than $200 million to remain with the Sixers, has done everything right since the moment the Sixers drafted him at No. 21 overall in the 2020 NBA Draft. Nabbing Maxey out of Kentucky that late in the first round seemed like a steal for the Sixers at the time, and it has paid dividends more than anybody could have imagined for both the team and player.
"I thought I could have gone higher," Maxey said. "But I found a home here."
There is no doubt that Maxey, a five-star recruit out of Garland, Texas in high school, had plenty of believers despite sliding in his draft. But nobody could have imagined what he would mean to an NBA franchise just four years later.
"He's emerging as one of the NBA's elite players," Sixers managing partner Josh Harris said. "That helps. But he's a good person, so that really lifts everyone."
Maxey, 23, is as diligent of a worker as many around the Sixers have ever witnessed. He has starred under two different coaching staffs in four NBA seasons. He has been a bench player, a starter, a bench player again and a starter again. He has been a shooting guard, a point guard, a shooting guard again and a point guard again. He has captured the hearts of Sixers fans with his infectious smile and upbeat nature as well as relentless effort that represents everything the city of Philadelphia is supposed to hope for from its star players. Maxey treats everybody — everybody — with the utmost respect, exuding humility well beyond his years.
A few days before Maxey's contract was announced, the Sixers posted a video that might be one of the highlights of the team's offseason: an intimate, emotional gathering among many in the organization — including Embiid and Julius "Dr. J." Erving — to celebrate Maxey's rise to stardom and the quality of his character.
for the Franchise. pic.twitter.com/cJNWTL2yT0
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) July 8, 2024
"Tyrese, I think you're the best teammate I've ever had," Embiid says in the opening moments of the video, which includes recognition of Maxey's many accomplishments in basketball, personalized messages from figures meaningful both in his life and within Philadelphia, a mock jersey retirement banner with Maxey's No. 0 and a heartfelt thank you from the man himself.
"I always say, [Embiid] was the first person to believe in me," Maxey said. "He's had the ultimate faith in me."
All of that is outstanding, but the puzzle does not come together without the most critical piece: Tyrese Maxey is an outstanding basketball player.
Maxey, last year's Most Improved Player Award winner in the NBA, posted career-highs across the board on a per-game basis in 2023-24, averaging 25.9 points, 6.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 0.5 blocks.
The 6-foot-2 guard emerged as a starting-caliber player in his second NBA season when Simmons' holdout forced him into a starting point guard role for the first time in his basketball life. Maxey blossomed, pairing the outrageous speed he entered the NBA owning with a shooting stroke that was shaky when he exited Kentucky and is now clearly among those of the elite marksmen in today's NBA. His improvement as a shooter in particular is a testament to the enormous amount of work he puts into his game on a daily basis year-round.
All of it — the natural abilities and the ones he has developed over time — have coalesced into something beautiful. Maxey is capable of easily blowing by any defender in front of him thanks to his ridiculous burst, but can also knock down any jumper a defense allows him to take. His skills, paired with the dominance of Embiid, have allowed the co-stars to form a lethal two-man game that will give opposing coaches nightmares for many years to come.
But Embiid is no longer Maxey's lone co-star. The team declined to offer Maxey this contract last summer, when he was first eligible for it — not because they were unsure of his value, but because doing so saved them more than $20 million in cap room entering this summer. That was the difference in enabling the Sixers to sign Paul George to a four-year deal worth about $212 million, giving Maxey and Embiid a third star who — on paper — fits like a glove.
"[George] brings an overall different aspect of the game for us," Maxey said, before turning his attention to Sixers head coach Nick Nurse, seated in the front row, and flashing his signature smile. "We have a really good coach who is going to help us put those pieces together, so we're going to put that on him."
Plenty of teams have won paper championships, though. The special groups are the ones that actually go and do it. Those are the teams that are remembered forever, led by players who eventually do see their names and numbers in the rafters.
Like Embiid, Maxey has adopted a mentality that disregards personal achievement of any kind. He is singularly focused on helping the Sixers get back to where they have not been since Erving and Moses Malone led the charge: the top of the basketball world as NBA champions.
"I just want to keep working extremely hard and bring a championship and wins to this city," Maxey said.
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