Nearly everything has gone awry for the Philadelphia 76ers. For a team now bereft of silver linings, the painful reality for them is that they are extremely unlikely to win the championship this season. Just making the playoffs would be quite a surprise at this point given the fact that they are now 10 games below .500 with January slowly ending.
Most of, if not all of their contemporaries in the Eastern Conference have gotten better. The 76ers pale in comparison. They have seen most of their players decline to unprecedented levels, severely affecting their prospect as a collective.
The more concerning thing, however, is what comes next for the franchise after this season. The front office had already committed to their current nucleus, and given how the contract of their stars are constructed, it is highly unlikely that we will see a massive facelift anytime soon.
Tyrese Maxey has been quietly disappointing for the 76ers this season
Speaking of disappointments, the Philadelphia 76ers have not gotten much improvement from Tyrese Maxey. Coming off a personal campaign which culminated into a Most Improved Player plum, the All-Star guard was expected to make the leap to superstardom this season.
The carpet was even laid down perfectly for the young star. Joel Embiid already missed a huge chunk of the season due to injury and the addition of Paul George has not been detrimental to Maxet at all usage-wise. However, that still did not stop him from taking a step back this season on multiple fronts.
Maxey is averaging a career-high 26.1 points per game this season, but he is doing it with much less efficiency. He is shooting a career-low 42.1 percent from the field this season, and his three-point percentage has taken a nosedive toward below-average territory at 33.1 percent.
Some decline due to increased defensive attention is probably to be expected, but this is a bit drastic. Even worse, he is settling far more this season as he has routinely taken bad shots during critical portions fo the game.
His playmaking has also stagnated. He displayed a significant leap as a table-setter last season, but despite logging the ninth-highest usage rate in the league (tied with, well, Nikola Jokic), his assists are down and he is turning the ball over a lot more, coughing the ball up 2.5 times per outing.
These have potentially significant ramifications on Maxey’s ability to eventually usurp Embiid as the alpha on the team, eventually putting a hard cap on what the team can achieve with its current core.
Now, the Philadelphia 76ers should not let these change their view on Tyrese Maxey for the most part. However, it is important for the All-Star to address these as soon as possible if he wants to make that expected leap.
After all, this is not only a matter of wanting it, but a thing of necessity for the franchise.