A Mike Muscala 3-pointer is essentially the reason the Philadelphia 76ers got to draft Tyrese Maxey.
Maxey is one of the main reasons the 76ers got to sign LeBron James on Friday.
So, if you trace the thread all the way through, a Muscala 3 led the Sixers to James.
It started in the NBA Bubble during the COVID-altered 2020 season.
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The Thunder owed their 2020 first-round pick to the 76ers as part of the 2016 Jerami Grant trade.
The pick was top-20 protected, but when Muscala hit a game-winning 3 with five seconds left to beat the Miami Heat in the Bubble, it knocked the pick out of its top-20 protection status.
The 76ers got to keep the pick that year, and they used it on Maxey.
That resulted, more or less, in the momentum that eventually led to the Paul George signing, and then George was traded with picks for Jaylen Brown.
And now, LeBron has chosen to come play with Maxey and Brown in Philly.
This wonderful post on X explained it all:
Mike Muscala hit this three in the bubble to move the Thunder’s 2020 pick owed to Philly outside of the top 20 protection zone
That pick was Tyrese Maxey
Maxey made the Sixers competitive enough that they were able to bring in Paul George
Who then was dealt for Jaylen Brown…
— 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒆 🌩 (@Three_Cone) July 24, 2026
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The 76ers should be sure to send Muscala a Christmas card for this one.
He played in 548 games as a second-round pick out of Bucknell. At the time, that 3-pointer might not have seemed too massively important.
But six years later, it turns out that was the biggest shot Muscala ever made.
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