See the blur. A small red haze, fuzzing at the edges, tearing across the screen. All the eye can capture is bokeh, because this little thing is vamoosing, gushing sparks, going where it pleases. The blur will not stop, for anyone or anything, until the whistle blows. Then, it rests, and the image comes into focus. It’s Tyrese Maxey. And he is lighting it up.
Not to exaggerate, but Maxey will fire from the water tower, from the snowy peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro, from any one of the 66 active Iridium satellites currently in orbit around our Earth. He is pulling from the seventh moon of Xandaza, from the year 2077. Very secure in his relationship with the goal and extremely comfortable doing long distance. When you love someone, you make it work.
Since the Philadelphia 76ers took him 21st in the 2020 NBA draft, Maxey has been a revelation. Every year, he adds a new element to his game, tightens something, fine-tunes something else. The handle gets smoother, the brakes get better, the smile gets brighter. This year, he came out of the gates real serious, and your man is blazing. He’s making [pulls big blue lever labeled “THE LEAP”]. The 2025 edition of Maxey is still hypersonic but also more refined, more devastating. The decision-making is more sophisticated, the attacks more forceful. The stat lines have been steamy and rated R. Maxey had 150 points over his first four games and is currently second in the league in scoring after hanging a career-high 54 points to beat the Bucks on Thursday night. At 25, he looks fully capable of being the best player on a great team and is the biggest reason the Sixers are not just 9-6 but also, against all odds, legitimately fun to watch.
Maxey has brought the Sixers out of their sepia sludge and into glorious Technicolor. This is a mighty feat. The thing about the Sixers in recent years is that they have been a gigantic bummer. This organization plumbed the depths of tanking hell and came out with an all-time talent beset by injuries and two no. 1 picks. One was afraid to shoot. The other forgot how. There have been a slew of surgeries and plenty of personality clashes. Many types of beef. Player vs. player, player vs. coach, coach vs. front office, player vs. front office. Their former general manager tweeted team info from burner accounts, and their team has not made the conference finals since 2001. They bring in big names who struggle to show up in big moments and replace them with big names who struggle to show up in big moments. Their last-ditch effort to salvage the Joel Embiid era entailed a four-year max for Paul George and a massive extension for Embiid, which now look like two of the worst contracts in the NBA. As recently as four weeks ago, the team was in dire straits. But Maxey is the memory wipe, a majestic neuralyzer. He’s levitating above it all.
Maxey isn’t the sole reason for the Sixers’ vibe reversal. Philly’s rookie virtuoso V.J. Edgecombe has been an open flame this season. This is a primo backcourt, top-shelf mega-entertainment for the whole family. The first three games of this season, they combined to score 186 points. That’s the most a starting backcourt has scored in their first three games since the NBA started keeping track of such things back in 1970. Add in a now-healthy Jared McCain, and this is one of the most electric young perimeter rotations in the league, a trio of diabolical headhunters that runs defenses ragged. And Maxey’s the ace, the Prince of the City.
Cut to Maxey, laying his coat over a puddle so sweet old ladies can cross the street. Cut to Maxey, opening a jar for you. Cut to Maxey, asking about your grandmother. Cut to Maxey, pioneering equine therapy, training horses for therapeutic riding programs, teaching people they can love again. Cut to Daryl Morey, commissioning various Maxey shrines. He flies in Jack Fisk, has him do the designs. Morey, shouting: “I loved your work on Terminal Island!” Maxey has become the Sixers’ animating principle because he has made it so. He’s a worker. In his early years, he worked out so much that the Sixers had to put in mandatory blackout days for him. This man is obsessed with self-improvement.
A Look Around the NBA
This season, the sixth-year point guard has graduated from frequent dominance to constant dominance. He’s got it from all three levels. Some of the potions he mixes up in transition, hoo boy. Even at high speeds, things are happening slowly for him. He gets in transition, and his world moves like Denzel’s in The Equalizer. He is the on-court personification of the Road Runner’s beeps. His legs are a circular, churning cloud. If you are a defender, get used to the back of his jersey. You see him in the Tissot Style Lounge; he’s not pressed for time. He can get anywhere in four seconds. He outruns angles, makes the scoreboard shake.
Maxey’s a well-caffeinated Mach 5 crossed with the Star Gate sequence crossed with uranium-238. His comps are the Concorde, falcons, and the beginning of “B.O.B.” He is the answer to the question “Who is the wind?” He is the answer to the question “Who’s in charge here?”
There’s so much speed and touch and skill. So much balance. One-foot finishes off the left or the right, floaters sneaking over outstretched paws. It says here float game magic carpet, which, that can’t be right. That’s reprehensible.
If he goes glass, he has no problem easing it in from high above the square. There are fluid baseline fadeaways. Serving high-gather, sweeping layups in transition; screaming diagonally across the lane; dropping one-handed giant-killers at a sprint. Natural righty with a nasty left. He kicks up gravel on his drives. Scoops and hesis, and when he goes from second to fourth gear, the defender’s choking on the fumes. The man has the escapability of Randall Cunningham. The game is [bowling with the skulls of his enemies]. Look what he did to the Clips a few nights ago.
If a normal person of normal athleticism attempted one of these wrong-foot, weak-hand, on-the-run, across-the-body, part-scoop, part-floater, part-hook shots, their body would go into a state of so much chaos they’d have to take the next week off work. If I attempt that shot, I throw my back out, shit my pants, and never leave the house again.
And Maxey does it all wearing a gentle grin. The personality is an 8,000-megawatt dimple festival, but it’s important not to let that smile fool you. He will gladly light you on fire if it means a win. Sometimes death booms into the room. Sometimes it sneaks. Sometimes it happens quickly. Sometimes it happens slowly. But it always happens. He is Basketball Buster Scruggs minus the hubris. He’s singing and cheesing and keeping the mood light, right up until it’s time to lock and load. Maxey has become a player who brings on the credits, a player you can end the movie with.
