There’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel for the Philadelphia 76ers and their fans. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, there’s a potential that the Sixers All-Star big man Joel Embiid could return against either the Minnesota Timberwolves or the next game against the Orlando Magic.
The 76ers have been 2-7 in his absence, but there has been one silver lining while Embiid had been dealing with COVID-19. Tyrese Maxey has shown real All-Star potential during this nine-game stretch. With Embiid returning, the question becomes how much does he impact the growth that Maxey has shown and could continue to show moving forward.
How does Embiid’s return to the Sixers impact Maxey?
During this nine-game stretch, Maxey has averaged 23.7 points, 4.6 assists, and 0.7 turnovers, while making 48.8 percent of his field goals and 42.1 percent of his 3-point line. Those are All-Star level numbers.
On the season as a whole, Maxey is averaging 18.7 points, 4.6 assists, and 1.2 turnovers, while shooting 50.0 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from downtown. Overall, he’s having a great season for a second-year point guard who’s only 21 years old.
To be clear, despite this great play from Maxey, Embiid is by far the superior player. Embiid is an MVP-level player when healthy and is going to have the offense run through him once he’s back playing.
With that in mind, Maxey should be the second option on offense as I have written about before. Maxey will probably not be scoring quite around the 23-point clip moving forward, but he is more than capable of scoring around 20 points per game with Embiid in the lineup.
The biggest hurdle for Maxey is learning how to still be aggressive with Embiid in the lineup. If he can learn how to do that, then the Sixers can be dangerous in the playoffs. Maxey has been hot, but with Embiid returning soon, the young point guard has to learn to play that same way with the big man in the lineup.