The Sixers dedicated their offseason to making sure they wouldn’t replicate their 24-win season from a year ago, regardless of who is or isn’t available to play on any given night.
Tyrese Maxey, who takes up the burden of carrying a shorthanded team more than anyone else in the organization, came into the season with a clear goal for the team’s identity.
Back at media day, he said, “I think the biggest thing I’m trying to accomplish is: we need a standard. Like, this is who we are every single day no matter who plays, no matter who doesn’t play. When you see Philadelphia 76ers this is what you see, you’re gonna see that team every single night. Every single time you turn the TV on, every single time you step foot in whatever arena we’re playing in, this is the type of team you’re going get, and this is the type of culture you’re going to get.”
That quote resonated throughout the organization — so much so that it plays over the team’s commercials advertising future games during broadcasts — in spite of Maxey slipping up on the newly named Xfinity Mobile Arena.
The start of the season has seen the Sixers deal with similar injury turmoil to a year ago. Paul George missed the first 12 games of the season. Jared McCain missed the first six and still hasn’t gotten into a rhythm, still yet to play more than 15 minutes in a game. As cautious as they’ve tried to be with Joel Embiid, he’s now missed six games with a right knee issue, one that was originally labeled as soreness before being upgraded to an injury.
It goes further than the top of the roster. Kelly Oubre Jr. will miss at least two weeks with a knee sprain. Adem Bona sprained his ankle, Trendon Watford missed all of preseason and the first couple games of the year, and Dominick Barlow had an exciting start to his year derailed by the strangest elbow injury of all time.
Through it all, the Sixers have been worlds better at dealing with these injuries so far this season. They’re sitting at 9-6, holding the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference. They didn’t pick up their ninth win last year until late December.
The through line that’s helped them steady the ship is Maxey. He is currently second in the league in scoring, averaging 33.4 points per game, sitting only behind Luka Doncic. He is also second for three-pointers made per game, making 4.1 a game, only Steph Curry has made more. Maxey’s currently made the most threes in the league so far.
Not only are these averages career-bests for Maxey, they’re not even close. It’s been enough to get him some early MVP chatter. Not just the chants he’s gotten at home games when he’s at the free throw line, but he was eighth in NBA.com’s latest MVP ladder.
The Sixers have gotten some other positive contributions to help this start. VJ Edgecombe vaulted himself into the Rookie of the Year conversations with a couple early star-level performances. Quentin Grimes has been a steady hand in clutch time, and Oubre was playing really good two-way ball before he went down.
With all that being said, the Sixers this year have gone as far as Maxey has taken them. The Sixers have a net rating of +5.17 with him on the floor, a solid rating for a decent team, and have the rating of a lottery team with him off the floor at -11.42. The team’s offensive rating is 120.9 when he’s on the floor and 106.2 when he’s not. Cleaning the Glass says that 120 points per 100 possessions is in the 77th percentile across the league.
Every passing day, “The Franchise” nickname Embiid gave to Maxey looks more and more fitting. There’s still a hundred questions about this Sixers roster going forward, both health related and not. As long as No. 0 takes the court though, the Sixers are able to go out there and fight.