Let Tyrese Maxey lead
The LeBron experiment threatens a beautiful thing
25-year-old Tyrese Maxey is on the path to be a serious MVP contender, and he has been using his ascent to do something rare: he has been inspiring and developing his 20-year-old teammate VJ Edgecombe. And it’s not just Edgecombe. Maxey’s 76ers beat the Celtics in the playoffs while giving real responsibility to young players like then 22-year-old Dominick Barlow, 23-year-old Adem Bona, and 22-year-old Justin Edwards.
This journey has included some of the most inspiring NBA leadership ever. The 76ers lost their first playoff game in Boston while making just four of their 23 3-point attempts. Maxey made one of four, Edgecombe missed all five. The Celtics won by 32.
At the very next game, also in Boston, Maxey and Edgecombe made 11 of 22 3-pointers, and the Sixers won by 14. When the two stood together for a post-game NBC interview, Maxey smiled and said they got good shots in Game 1, but “that’s not who we are man, we just didn’t play good. We missed shots. We let our offense dictate our defense.”
In Game 2 they had combined for 59 points. They asked Edgecombe how he scored 30 in the second playoff game of his NBA career. He nudged Maxey and said: “This guy right here. Told me to keep shooting, and he keep making the pass. I mean, the pass is coming with some love on it, so I got to make that shot.”
The pass is coming with some love on it.
Basketball is jazz, not classical music. In classical music, if the flutist or the trombone player is really feeling it, and just start ad-libbing, it wouldn’t be classical for long, where every note hits at the exact right moment, performance after performance, century over century. In football, everyone has to run precise routes, just like in practice. But jazz is so much about feel and rhythm, and here’s Tyrese Maxey telling a younger player to catch that feeling and to find that rhythm. I see those guys playing with so much joy; it feels essential and free to me. My biggest thought is: let them play, let them figure out this beautiful game.
After they got eliminated by the Knicks, Maxey and Edgecombe addressed the media together, and it was clear they had big plans. Maxey has told stories about inviting his teammates to six a.m. workouts, after which he told his dad he was going to love Edgecombe.
Maxey told the media that the Knicks had made life very difficult for him, by swarming him on defense. Drafting Edgecombe, Maxey said, “was huge for myself. Like, he took a lot of pressure off me this season, just being able to, and he’s going to only get better, honestly. But being able to handle the ball, being able to make some plays, being able to give me some relief as far as just like here, man, you bring it up, you create a play, let me go over here. and you know sometimes he was creating plays for me.”
The future Maxey and Edgecombe envisioned was clearly similar but better. Edgecombe will have bad shooting nights, but they’d tell him to keep shooting, and he’d end up well ahead of the curve for someone who can’t legally drink until he turns 21 later this week.
Edgecombe said he planned to spend the offseason working on “scoring, you know, off the dribble” and “shooting catch and shoot.” He had been left open a little in the playoffs; he only made 35 percent of his regular-season 3s, and 29 percent of his playoff 3s. Edgecombe planned to fix that for good. “Coming into next year,” he explained, “a team won’t ever leave me open.”
Two months ago VJ’s season ended. He took his vacation, and I imagine he was dreaming about averaging 22 points a game next year. Without question, he looks to be a bona fide NBA starter with real potential to become a star. And then Jaylen Brown comes in July, and now he’s thinking, okay, that’s going to be a little harder, but I’m going to be the third option when Embiid doesn’t play, and the fourth option when he does. Then LeBron chooses Philadelphia.
Now, if you’re Nick Nurse, the head coach, before guys start returning back to Philly for September workouts, you’re assessing roles. Maxey’s the high-level scoring guard. Brown is an elite-level scoring wing. You’ve got Embiid at center, and LeBron, a power forward.
And you’ve got a giant problem, which is to win in the East will mean figuring out who’s going to guard players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes, Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum, Pascal Siakam, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Johnson, and Jalen Brunson in the playoffs.
It looks like they’re now adding one of LeBron’s former teammates, and another Klutch client, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope—who was just waived by the Grizzlies. Now this is starting to seem more like a LeBron team, populated with past-their-prime veterans. (Henry has written about how LeBron’s obsessive nature has long made him intolerant of young teammates.)
As a thought experiment, I have long let myself imagine what would happen if LeBron had wanted to lead like Tyrese Maxey, by encouraging young teammates to explore their full capabilities. LeBron’s up there with Magic, Bird, and Bill Russell on the Mount Rushmore of cerebral, gifted basketball thinkers.
What if he had used that to say: give me all the players with the most athletic ability or the most skill who don’t yet know how to play. I’ll take care of that part. There are always players knocking around like Jalen Green and Benn Mathurin who are super athletic, super powerful, super skilled, super everything—but they don’t want to change the way they play because it’s always worked for them.
If anyone could convince them to change, you’d think it’d be LeBron.
How many championships would LeBron have if he had spent these decades surrounded by the world’s most skilled, athletic dudes who just need to know how to play? I’d argue it’d be more than the four he has. I’d argue he has that opportunity right now with V.J. Edgecombe and LeBaron Philon Jr.
But … I know players who have been LeBron’s teammates in recent years. I can’t really ever remember a time where they felt like he was all-in helping them grow. The stories I’ve heard are from players who love LeBron, but in honest moments will grumble that he often seems checked out. The whole team had a group chat, I was told LeBron literally never joined in. As one player said to me a few years ago “the leader of our team is Patrick Beverley, not LeBron James.”
A player called me once, halfway through the season, and said “hey, LeBron hugged me today after practice.” I didn’t know what he meant. Hugging is very normal in basketball. He said “he’s never hugged me, not one time before.”
The pass, in other words, is not coming with much love on it.
In a perfect world, LeBron would be hugging whoever it is that’s getting ready to sacrifice their body to guard the other team’s best players.
It could be great for VJ, in terms of his long-term player development, to become a defensive demon. He certainly has the capability of evolving into a classic three-and-D guard/wing who shoots 3s on one end, gets out in transition, and is the most reliable defensive perimeter player on the roster.
But that’s a giant career change from growing his offensive game, which means playmaking with the ball, using screens in ISO, end-of-clock situations, and all the other things maximum salary players do.
In what rotations in this team is he going to get to do that now? The pecking order is Brown, Maxey, Embiid (the 40 games or so that he plays), LeBron … and then VJ.
Long term, this could be a really impactful season for VJ as a winning player, a guy that finds ways to win possessions without having the ball in his hands much.
But those guys are never All Stars, and this league is brutal in the way a reputation can be hard to shake. If VJ is seen as a role player, it’ll be tough for him to be seen as a star. As long as LeBron is healthy, VJ’s going to be playing a role that usually goes to players making the mid-level. I just don’t think that’s what VJ was expecting or wanting—and it comes at the same time it appears Jaylen Brown may be in line to devour the maximum salary slot that was once going to be VJ’s.
Meanwhile, Dom Barlow and Dean Wade can guard the perimeter. Barlow is seeking to become a high-level defender. He can guard guards. He’s almost 6-10 and super athletic with a seven-foot-plus wingspan. And he just turned 23. That’s the guy you throw in all year. Let him take his lumps, just as Dean Wade has done for a few years now. You’ll have plenty of wins, and by playoff time, you’ve got your shutdown guy. Even if he’s off the bench, you still got to guard Giannis. You think LeBron’s doing that? You still got to guard Siakam. You think LeBron’s doing that? Someone’s got to guard Cade and it won’t be Tyrese Maxey.
Imagine a regular season with 48 minutes of Dean Wade and Dominick Barlow guarding the other team’s best player. By the playoffs, you’ll know how you’re going to play opposing stars.
Henry has talked about the risk of adding huge salary players like Jaylen Brown. And he discussed some of the risks of adding LeBron the other day. To me, they include:
I never think it’s a great thing to get a player who has seriously considered retiring. The grind of the season, the physicality that the league has in place now, the speed of the games—all of that has reduced LeBron’s impact significantly in recent years. If you were doing a geometric progression, LeBron will be lucky to be a net neutral player this upcoming season. Last season was his worst season of record. He’s amazing, and he can still run. But stopping and starting and changing direction and having the fight required to play championship-level defense just hasn’t been there. He had Luka Dončić on his team last year, and they were good but nowhere near the best.
I’ve seen people saying LeBron will mentor Maxey and Edgecombe. But show me, in the last ten years, how many players has LeBron mentored into star status? It’s hard enough at anyone’s age, much less LeBron’s age, to just play well enough himself to be impactful. It’s not fair to ask him to be an assistant coach too.
They’re legends and former MVPs, but of course neither LeBron James nor Joel Embiid is likely to be a reliable contributor this season. I wrote not too long ago that Embiid should sit every game until April. I’d amend that now to say he should play once or twice a month just to get some minutes with LeBron. But I think the chances of him doing that are just not great. More likely, they will play Embiid quite a lot if they can which means it’s very unlikely he’s going to be healthy in the playoffs. We can say the same for LeBron, who will either be heavily load-managed, or in all likelihood, pretty beat up. Either will have a big impact on the 76ers prospects.
And that’s where my worries come from. From this team’s ability to keep the spirit of brotherly love.
Imagine being Tyrese Maxey. You just finished your career year. You are a legitimate MVP candidate going forward—if your team can contend.
LeBron seems to at least not make them worse. I don’t think he’s going to be the juggernaut some fans and media are suggesting, but still, the Sixers probably are better with LeBron in there than some other minimum player who either is too young to make an impact or has never really been good anyway and is just hanging around the league.
But LeBron can’t help but soak up a lot of the oxygen in the room. Tension off the court, and then without question, he’s going to want the ball a fair amount. There’s absolutely an argument that LeBron and Maxey should play well together. Except it’s not just those two. Add Jaylen Brown, and it’s already almost impossible for Maxey to be the MVP.
Jayson Tatum is an absolutely incredible player who has never won an MVP … in no small part because he always shared the stage with Jaylen Brown.
I’ll remind you of what I was hearing just after James Harden was traded from OKC. It seems to have been lost in the dust of history, but I spoke with multiple players who played with Harden during those years. The word I was getting from them was that Harden didn’t go to Houston looking merely for more money than the Thunder would pay.
Harden wanted to be the best player in the world, the leading scorer in the league, and one of the richest players of all time. Check, check, and check. He totally succeeded at those goals. That was never going to be the case in OKC with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. And if not for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Chris Paul’s tricky hamstring, he likely would have at least one title too.
Here we have Maxey, who may indeed have had similar urgings. Does he want to explore what he might become? It doesn’t matter now. Those days are gone. The presence of Jaylen Brown alone pretty much kills Maxey’s chances of accomplishing that.
Now, could they win more games with Maxey doing a little bit less now that Brown is there? Absolutely. Does that have an impact on Maxey’s value and place in the league? Of course. It definitely means he’s not going to be competing for MVP honors. Whether Joel Embiid is healthy or not, Brown and Maxey together are going to make it tougher for either of them to win an MVP.
So let’s just assume Maxey’s fine with not having a chance to chase those dreams of winning an MVP and being considered a top-five player in the world. He still has to deal with a new superstar presence in Brown, the enigmatic Joel Embiid and the never-ending drama of his health, and LeBron James.
Say what you want about LeBron as a leader and as a global icon, it’s extraordinary. Nevertheless, a circus follows wherever he goes. Some of it is self-driven. It benefits him because there’s always eyeballs on him and what he’s doing. None of which will have anything to do with helping Tyrese Maxey grow his game. Now, if you can say Maxey will score more baskets without dribbling because of LeBron’s passing, then you’re probably right. But Maxey is probably the best ISO player in the league next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. So you’re asking for him to make a pretty big change.
Almost any other player who will play the supporting role LeBron will play this year would be a quiet spiritual leader. Think Aaron Nesmith for the Pacers. Obviously, they’re very different players, but Aaron Nesmith tends not to take too many dribbles, tends not to take contested shots. He’s got other players on the team who do those things. He races. He works. He shoots open 3s. He does straight-line drives. He lets everyone else shine.
LeBron is not going to accept that role, even if he could pull it off, which to me becomes as much a challenge as any.
A lot falls on Nick Nurse and his staff to coach this up, to make sure everyone’s on the same page and not just accepts but embraces their role. And nothing against Nick Nurse, but this team has had some clunkiness to it for a while, as did his last team in Toronto—Nick’s offenses have never been seen as creative, even when efficient, and this roster will require an artist’s touch. I don’t know if anyone can build a great offense when the starting power forward and center are such incredible talents while also being old, fragile, and in desperate need of load management. Building a cohesive offense with the egos that these guys have, and the challenges their two starting big men face, is the challenge of Nurse’s career.
And it could interrupt a wonderful youth movement. They just drafted one of my favorite players in the draft, LaBaron Philon Jr. At Alabama he played in a pro-style offense and became an All-American in his second season. I probably wouldn’t have picked him as rookie of the year, especially considering the coaching staff in Philadelphia likes to play their starters a lot, but I expect great things if he can get on the court. He was going to be an important player. He’s a scorer. He’s a winner. He plays the right way. He plays incredibly hard. He’s a lot like Tyrese Maxey in that he plays with so much joy.
Now how do you think LaBaron feels? He had no control of any of it.
Dean Wade is an excellent player, who not very long ago was set to battle Dom Barlow for a starting job. Barlow started 60 games last season, and absolutely looks like a long-term starter for a good team. He was the team’s best tall defender last season. When will either of them play?
The coaching staff will tell Barlow and Wade this doesn’t change anything, you’re going to play a lot. They both can guard both forward positions. I don’t know if Barlow can play the three on offense unless he’s learned to shoot better, which is possible. Both those guys are cutters. They’re willing passers. They do all the little things to help win possessions.
It’s certainly possible Dean Wade’s now second guessing his decision. He thought he was signing to be a starter on a playoff team. 100 percent that’s not happening except when LeBron’s out, and he has Dom Barlow nipping at his heels to take some of his minutes. And Barlow is in line for a big pay raise and is looking to have a breakout season. How good can he be? Two seasons ago, Johni Broome and Cooper Flagg were the two best college players, both playing for top seeds in the NCAA tournament. Last year, Broome mostly toiled in the G League, while Barlow carved out his starting role for the Sixers, despite being nearly a year younger than Broome. And now his minutes are going to be tight.
All of this can be washed away with great vibrations in the locker room. Lots of winning, lots of egoless stars who are all bought in for the right reasons.
Does anyone really think that’s likely? If so, you haven’t really paid much attention to the history of these players.
So again, it’s absolutely possible that the team has some kumbaya moments. It’s possible LeBron plays enough without risking injury. It’s possible VJ improves overall, and Philon Jr. becomes a good guard off the bench. Wade and Barlow might become outstanding role players despite limited minutes. Maxey and Brown might be the top duo for any team, regardless of position.
That team won’t play amazing defense, but you can contend anyway if you can score at an elite level, and they might.
But I can’t ignore the possibility that it’s not a kumbaya team, that it’s Embiid disappearing for a week or two or more. LeBron doing the same to be able to still play solidly come springtime. And some incredible young players wondering when it’ll be their turn, or worse, playing wonderfully then getting relegated when Embiid and James are back.
The East is looking tough, probably the first time in many years it’s the better conference. The defending champion Knicks are still excellent. I’m hearing great things about the shape Tyrese Haliburton is in, and the Pacers also added Kelly Oubre and Ivica Zubac. Of course Boston is a sleeper, they know how to win and their management team bet on addition by subtraction after moving Brown. The Raptors, with Kawhi, look like a nightmare to face because of that defense. The Hawks gave the Knicks a little trouble and have made some major deals.
The Sixers are in that mix, but not at the top. This approach may well sap the delightful spirit of what was recently a young team bursting with love. They’re at a moment in the development of their young players where, as Maxey and Edgecombe taught us last year, great things can come from letting them play through their mistakes, so you can get to the playoffs with some healthy studs ready to do whatever the team needs.
In a few years, neither LeBron nor Embiid will remain here. Soon it’ll be a team built around Maxey, Edgecombe, Philon Jr., and Barlow. Now’s their chance to mature.
Instead, I’m worried we’ll have moments where some young player makes a mistake, and LeBron will turn to say “fuck, we gotta get this guy out,” and then KCP comes in and he’s just okay. That’s how a team with a high ceiling becomes a team with a low one.
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Change your game for one year? Or wait for LeBron to leave and continue developing your own way?
Unfortunately, this is a case of subtraction by addition. LeBron and Brown will destroy this team, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to start butting heads, as both have huge me-first egos. And you're absolutely right about Nick Nurse.