Tyrese Maxey Isn’t Ben Simmons, but He’s Changing Philadelphia’s Future

The second-year guard has given the Sixers some breathing room with Simmons out.

Tyrese Maxey is 21 years old and already a rock solid candidate for Most Improved Player—an award that’s been won by only seven sophomores in NBA history. But packed into Maxey’s startling production is a new, steeper trajectory that also makes him one of the league’s more pivotal young talents. As a point guard with star potential, Maxey is changing the calculus when it comes to what Daryl Morey should ask for if/when the Sixers trade Ben Simmons.

It’s understated, but very few players see their minutes, points and assists more than double from year one to two, as Maxey’s have. He’s stepped into a complicated situation and, ironically, given the Sixers something they’ve been on-and-off searching for since The Process was realized in the form of legitimate championship contention: a conventional, self-starting spark who makes delightful things happen with the ball in his hands.

Out of 26 players who’ve finished at least 200 possessions as a pick-and-roll ballhandler this season, Maxey is fifth in scoring efficiency, behind Donovan Mitchell, Steph Curry, Zach LaVine and Trae Young—which means, according to Synergy Sports, he’s ahead of Chris Paul, DeMar DeRozan and Ja Morant. Maxey probes with a live dribble and takes advantage of his blinding speed and soft touch around the basket in ways that have helped him emerge as a real threat all over the floor.

He’s gone from one of the worst three-point shooters in the NBA (Maxey made 30.1% of his 103 attempts as a rookie after hitting an even lower percentage in his one season at Kentucky) to a respectable threat on pull ups and catch-and-shoot tries, where he’s at 36% on both. Last year he never hinted at semi-regularly knocking down a stepback behind the arc. But from October 2021 on, he’s combined smooth footwork with a newfound confidence that’s helped redefine who he is and what he can be.

Maxey is slowly learning how to leverage that outside threat in more ways than one. As his accuracy climbs, so will the panic he induces in a defense.

Maxey has also become a better finisher, going from 59.1% to 67% within three feet of the basket, a jump that’s most noticeable when he puts his foot on the gas to burn opponents who go under screens trying to keep him out of the paint and away from his giant-slaying floater. (According to Synergy Sports, only Russell Westbrook and De’Aaron Fox have finished more possessions as a pick-and-roll ball handler against opponents who duck under the pick; in these spots Maxey ranks in the 85th percentile.)

All of this is happening as he replaces Simmons, a three-time All-Star who not so long ago was ordained as the most reliable prize gleaned from Philadelphia’s multi-year tank job. So, what exactly do the Sixers have in their second-year guard?

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A direct comparison is unfair but necessary when you consider the shoes Maxey has to fill, and the uncertain path to legitimate title contention Philadelphia suddenly finds itself staring at. Simmons obviously can’t bombs away from 25 feet like Maxey is and doesn’t pose the same traditional threat when given a pick at the top of the key.

But what he does provide cannot really be duplicated by anyone, let alone Maxey. Simmons is a premier defender who blankets top-shelf talent by manipulating his 6' 11", 240-pound body in ways that haven’t really been seen before. In transition, he effortlessly creates wide open shots for teammates who need an extra beat, seeing the entire floor and using his own track-star speed to make a slow team fast. The 6' 2" Maxey will never come close to being what Simmons is on defense, and as a table-setting playmaker he still has room to grow.

Despite averaging more frontcourt touches—with a longer time of possession—than Simmons did last year, Maxey isn’t ball dominant and the offense doesn’t center around (or rely upon) his creativity. Maxey’s assist rate ranks in just the 12th percentile at his position, per Cleaning the Glass (and is lower than Embiid’s), while he generates the same number of corner threes per 100 possessions as PJ Tucker (which is less than half of Simmons’s output last year).

Playing for a former point guard (Doc Rivers) who’s notoriously harsh on young point guards, Maxey searches for the right balance between eating and feeding with mixed results. He isn’t careless, which is good: When Maxey is on the floor Philly’s turnover rate is best in the league and falls to 27th without him. But he’ll eventually need to be more bold. Maxey’s pass percentage on drives is only 18.9%, dead last out of 75 players with at least 200 drives this season. Some of that’s because he’s a blur that gets to the rim before defenders rotate over to stop him.

But as the overseer of Philadelphia’s offense, there are also plays where he needs to break out of planned actions and adjust to what the defense is doing. On the play below, instead of keeping Aaron Gordon on Maxey the Nuggets put 35-year-old Jeff Green—someone he’d just beat off the bounce for a bucket—on him. Maxey responds by waiting for Seth Curry to set a screen for Tobias Harris, then enters the ball and retreats to the weakside corner.

It’s ultimately just one play in the first quarter of a game that was played before Thanksgiving, but there will hopefully be a day when Maxey can consistently recognize moments where what’s best for him are also what’s best for the team.

Here Maxey is in transition with Raptors hardship signing DJ Wilson standing between him and the rim. Instead of snipping the brakes and going straight at another mismatch, Maxey slows down despite Embiid waving him to attack.

Given the strides he’s made in other areas of his game, one could expect these blips of hesitation to evaporate sooner than later. This is someone who Kevin Durant handpicked as a 2-on-2 partner the summer before he entered the NBA, and graded as one of the dozen best players in the 2020 draft by Philadelphia's front office. (Maxey was the 21st pick.) There have been nights where he’s looked like an unstoppable go-to option, be it the 27 points (in 15 shots) he dropped on the Heat earlier this month, or the combined 64 points scored in early November in back-to-back games against the Bucks and Raptors. Those flashes are hard to forget.

Two months ago, any trade involving Simmons had to bring back a star who’s comfortable creating for himself and others. Maxey’s progression can change that. He’s not Simmons or particularly close to making an All-Star team (Rivers benched Maxey at the end of Philly’s win over the Raptors on Tuesday night), but the leap he’s made over the past few months may expand trade targets in a Simmons deal to include complementary pieces who elevate Maxey, as opposed to it being the other way around.

This conversation has another angle, though. Only in the second year of a rookie contract and shaping up to be a franchise point guard, there may be a team with the superstar Morey covets who’d be happy with a two-for-one swap: Maxey and Simmons for Damian Lillard, James Harden or someone better equipped to make a difference through four playoff rounds. (If Philadelphia’s attention turns to acquiring someone less accomplished while holding onto Simmons for a larger trade down the line, Maxey could also be used as a sweetener to get off Tobias Harris’s contract.)

Either way, Maxey is a bright spot who’s allowed Philly some breathing room. The pressure to make a move isn’t all gone, but it’s less than it would’ve been had Maxey not played as well as he has. If that sustains, there should be plenty of Most Improved Player votes headed his way. And if Maxey continues to ascend, the Sixers will have even more options at the trade deadline than they probably thought possible before the year began.