The "New" Tyrese Maxey
The Philadelphia 76ers benefited from the James Harden trade not only because they got rid of a discontented playoff choker, but also because without Harden dribbling the air out of the ball Tyrese Maxey can reach his full potential. Maxey is averaging a career-high 27.0 ppg this season with shooting splits of .466/.425/.930.
Maxey averaged 8.0 ppg as a rookie in 2020-21 before averaging 17.5 ppg and 20.3 ppg in his next two seasons; he was progressing even with Harden dominating the ball, but the leap from scoring in the low 20 ppg range to scoring in the high 20 ppg range is one that few players can make, and even fewer players can make that leap while maintaining their efficiency. Based on Maxey's skill set, there is no reason to believe that Maxey's current production is a fluke or unsustainable; last season, I pointed out that Maxey was already better than Harden: "Maxey is more efficient and more explosive than Harden, so the 76ers would be best served if Harden shot less frequently while Maxey shot more frequently. Coach Doc Rivers understands this, as can be seen by the fact that Maxey is averaging more field goal attempts per game than Harden this season after the reverse was true last season."
Maxey's increased production this season is yet another example of the limitations of using statistics for player evaluation in general, and more specifically the limitations of using "advanced basketball statistics" for player evaluation. A competent talent evaluator who watched Maxey play and did a skill set analysis of Maxey could figure out--even when Maxey was averaging 8.0 ppg--that he has the requisite size, strength, speed, ballhandling skills, court vision, and shooting touch to be an All-Star guard. Has Maxey improved? Sure--that is to be expected of a motivated and talented player. The point is that anyone who dismisses the value of the educated eye and makes talent evaluations primarily based on statistics--"advanced" or traditional--will miss big, important parts of the picture. This is true not only for talented players who are only averaging 8.0 ppg but also for players like Harden who post gaudy numbers that exaggerate their impact on team success. Harden's inflated statistics result from a combination of factors, including spending most of his career in a system that encouraged him to monopolize the ball, being rewarded for "flop and flail" tactics, and loosening scorekeeping standards that have inflated assist totals (this helps other players, but it is most helpful to players who monopolize the ball like Harden).
Regardless of who the second option is or how well he performs, the 76ers will only go as far as Embiid takes them--and Embiid has yet to prove that he can lead a team past the second round of the playoffs--but the 76ers are better now with Maxey as the primary ballhandler than they were with Harden as the primary ballhandler.
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", James Harden, Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers, Tyrese Maxey
posted by David Friedman @ 11:21 AM
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