The Sixers’ star-studded lineup could mean big things for Tyrese Maxey’s three-point shooting

For the last three seasons, since the 76ers traded James Harden in October 2023, Tyrese Maxey has been the team’s point guard whenever he has been on the floor. As his usage rate increased, so have his production and accolades (two All-Star Games and being named to the All-NBA third team).

The arrival of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, two other All-NBA talents who like to have the ball in their hands, is going to shift things for Maxey. James, who averages 7.4 assists per game in his career, is likely to take over some of those point guard duties.

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But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing for the Sixers or Maxey’s usage. In fact, getting Maxey off the ball could mean more efficient shots for him in an important area — his three-point shooting.

The last season Maxey played with Harden in the 2022-23 offers a clue into how the Sixers can utilize him slightly differently with Brown and James on the floor at the same time.

According to the website Cleaning the Glass, Maxey played 53% of his possessions that season at shooting guard, 47% at point guard. The previous season had Maxey listed at shooting guard 21% of the time. Once Harden was gone, Cleaning the Glass logged every possession Maxey played from that point onward at point guard.

The 2022-23 season was Joel Embiid’s MVP year, and he played 66 games, helpingallowing the offense to have the third-best efficiency in the league. Harden played 58 games and led the league in assists. The offense was humming, and it had a slightly higher efficiency with Maxey at shooting guard than point guard. What was different about Maxey that changed once Harden left? Take a look at his shooting.

From 2021-23, Embiid played in 134 regular-season games, more than any two-year stretch of his career. With Embiid playing a lot and Harden being a ball-dominant point guard, Maxey averaged 17.5 points per game in 2021-22 and then 20.3 points in 2022-23. He also had the two best three-point shooting seasons of his career, by percentage (42.7% and 43.4%, respectively).

In the latter season, that 43.4% came on 6.2 attempts per game, up from 4.1 the previous season. Maxey excelled, and has always excelled, at taking catch-and-shoot threes, the kind of looks offenses can generate with an athletic player like Maxey playing off ball. In 2022-23, Maxey shot an excellent 45.5% on 3.5 catch-and-shoot three-point attempts per game. Keep that number in mind if and when Maxey plays more off ball this season.

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Once he became the team’s full-time point guard, his three-point volume increased, but his percentages took a step back.

A deeper look into the type of threes Maxey was taking shows the number of catch-and-shoot threes he did not increase; he has never topped those 3.5 attempts per game from 2022-23, according to tracking data from NBA.com.

Instead, Maxey was taking more pull-up threes, which is the kind of shot he, and many other shooters, are not as efficient in taking. Last season, Maxey took 5.2 pull-up threes per game and hit them at a 33.5% clip. His catch-and-shoot threes: 41.7% on 3.4 attempts per game.

The ideal role for Maxey next season might be playing more off ball, running off screens and getting more catch-and-shoot threes. When he is getting those shots on a regular basis, he can be an elite shooter. For instance, the Minnesota Timberwolves have found the same with another member of Maxey’s 2020 draft class, Anthony Edwards. They made a trade to get point guard LaMelo Ball this summer to get Edwards more of these catch-and-shoot looks.

Edwards shot nearly 50% on catch-and-shoot threes last season, 35.3% on pull-ups, an even more exaggerated split than Maxey’s numbers. The underlying theme is those shots, when a player gets them in rhythm, are as close to a practice shot as players get in a game.

A cliché of coaching across all sports is that it’s the coach’s job to put players in the best positions to succeed. The revamped Sixers roster offers Nick Nurse a chance to do this with Maxey. Maxey having the ball less and having less on his plate as a ballhandler doesn’t have to be a negative for him individually and the Sixers as a team. The gravity of Brown, James and Embiid could do wonders for Maxey off ball, and it could end up getting him a higher volume of the type of shot he can be lethal at converting.