Tyrese Maxey Displays Maturity by Embracing Bench Role with 76ers

Coming off the bench on Sunday against the Lakers was ultimately Tyrese Maxey's decision.

Coming off the bench is nothing new for Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey. During his first regular season, Maxey appeared in 61 games and came off the bench for 53 of them.

It wasn’t until his sophomore season the former first-round pick out of Kentucky earned himself minutes in the starting lineup. Getting the nod to start in the absence of the disgruntled Ben Simmons last year, Maxey earned a full-time spot, starting in 74 of the 75 games he appeared in.

And after thriving as a starter during last season’s playoff run as well, Maxey entered the 2022-2023 NBA season as a surefire starter. However, a slow start to the year for the Sixers’ original starting five left some question marks surrounding the unit.

And since the Sixers found success with different lineups as Maxey spent 18 games recovering from a fractured foot, the idea of bringing the rising star off the bench lingered in Philadelphia. While Sixers head coach Doc Rivers seemingly resisted the idea at first, Maxey decided to essentially make the call for his head coach.

On Sunday, when the Sixers faced the Los Angeles Lakers on the road, Maxey came off the bench for just the third time this season. When he was out of the starting lineup twice earlier this year, it resulted from Maxey having a minutes restriction after recovering from his injury.

This time around, it was a personnel decision.

“Tyrese actually texted me about this,” Rivers revealed on Sunday. “I didn’t go to him — he went to me — which was really nice. It’s rare, but there have been guys… Look, Tyrese knows he’s going to play 30 minutes, 35 minutes. He knows he’s going to get his minutes regardless. What we tell everybody is, I rather be at the end of the game than the beginning of the game. That’s the lineups that we’ll really have to have a great focus on.”

After the game, Maxey explained his decision behind his recent suggestion.

“Sometimes you just gotta be the bigger person,” said Maxey. “I felt like it was kind of trending towards that way. I’m a professional at the end of the day. I feel like I’m a starter in this league, but I feel like our team is so good that I feel like we can have multiple people starting. At the end of the day, I think I played like 33 minutes. So, it is what it is. Just go out there and play. Do what I need to do to win, and we won.” 

As Rivers noted, Maxey still played over 30 minutes on Sunday night. The young guard led the Sixers’ bench with 16 points. Meanwhile, Georges Niang and Shake Milton scored eight points apiece, with Matisse Thybulle and Montrezl Harrell combining for four points. 

While the Sixers hope their newly-installed system of using three changing lineups can work long-term, Rivers mentions the key behind helping it become successful. 

“We don’t know if it’s gonna work for us,” Rivers admitted. “Maturity [is key]. If we can handle it, it’ll be really good for us. I think we have enough guys that we can do that with. We may find out that it doesn’t work well and go to one lineup. I do think for the best of the team, it works. It doesn’t work for every team, and we’ll see how it goes.”

After taking down the Jazz and the Lakers to begin their West Coast road trip, the Sixers will get Monday off before going head-to-head with the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night. That matchup will offer Philly another opportunity to get a good look at their lineups. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.