Why Tyrese Maxey suggested his move to bench for Sixers: ‘You’ve just got to be the bigger person’

LOS ANGELES — Doc Rivers recently received a text message from Tyrese Maxey that the 76ers coach acknowledges would be rare for any player to send.

Maxey, who averages 20.8 points per game and is widely regarded as a rising star, suggested his coach try bringing him off the bench.

Rivers took Maxey up on his offer Sunday, making him the sixth man on a night Maxey totaled 16 points and five rebounds in 33 minutes of the Sixers’ 113-112 down-to-the-wire victory against the Lakers. The coach also revealed that Maxey’s switch to a reserve role was part of a broader and nontraditional plan to, for the time being, use three versions of a starting lineup determined by the matchups of each opponent.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s 35 points, Georges Niang’s block lead Sixers to 113-112 victory over Lakers

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to be the bigger person,” Maxey said. “I felt like it was kind of trending towards [me coming off the bench], but I’m a professional at the end of the day. I feel like I am a starter in this league, but I feel like our team is so good that I think we can have multiple people starting.”

It can be assumed that one starting-lineup option is the group that began Sunday — James Harden, De’Anthony Melton, Tobias Harris, P.J. Tucker, and Joel Embiid — and another is the opening-night unit that flips Melton for Maxey. An educated guess would conclude that the third version is Harden, Maxey, Melton, Harris, and Embiid, which has been used to close games in recent weeks.

“Maturity, really, that’s the key,” Rivers said of navigating an unusual approach. “If we can handle it, it will be really good for us because I think we have enough guys that we can do that with. But we may find out that it doesn’t work well and go to one lineup.

“But I do think, for the best of the team, it works. But you’re right [in that] it doesn’t work with every team, and we’ll see how it goes.”

Such tinkering at this point is a by-product of the 27-16 Sixers’ roster instability during the regular season’s first half, which can be viewed through a positive or negative lens.

Health issues — most notably, significant foot injuries that kept Maxey and Harden out for several weeks — prevented that opening-night group from getting ample time to establish rhythm and chemistry together. Yet those extended absences also presented opportunity for others to succeed, which now offers flexibility to experiment. Rivers said he planned to bring Maxey off the bench for Saturday’s win at the Utah Jazz, before Harris was ruled out with knee soreness.

Sliding Melton into the starting group provides a perimeter boost on defense, the end of the floor where Harden and Maxey are below average. Conversely, Rivers believes the Sixers offense can be elite when Embiid (an MVP contender) Harden (a perennial All-Star who enters Monday leading the NBA in assists at 11.2 per game), Maxey, and Harris all share the floor. Tucker, the Sixers’ primary offseason addition, wants to be an X factor who can defend the opposing team’s best player, but he has rarely gotten fourth-quarter minutes in recent weeks.

» READ MORE: P.J. Tucker on the disappointing start to his Sixers tenure and fourth-quarter benchings: ‘I’ve just got to figure it out’

The Sixers’ closing lineup, of course, is even more important than who starts.

Maxey was part of that group Sunday, scoring seven points in the final frame. So was floor-spacing forward Georges Niang — who buried a massive corner three-pointer that put the Sixers up 111-109 with about a minute to play and then shot both arms up to block the Lakers’ Russell Westbrook at the rim at the buzzer — while Harris shifted over to guard LeBron James in Tucker’s absence. Against the Jazz, meanwhile, guard Shake Milton got minutes down the stretch of an efficient 17-point outing. Yet during the final possession of that one-point victory Rivers put “all our defenders on the floor,” including Tucker, Melton, and Matisse Thybulle.

“Top to bottom, we have a lot of talent and guys are comfortable,” Milton said Saturday. “We know what our jobs are, so when we come in the game late, we know what we have to do to execute.”

When asked about the multiple lineup options, Embiid grinned while responding with a quip of “I hope I keep my starting spot.” Then his tone turned serious, noting that to “figure out what works and what doesn’t is good for us in preparation of our goal, which is to try to win a championship.”

Maxey, meanwhile, trusts he will get starter-level minutes no matter how they are distributed. It’s been about two weeks since his return from a fractured foot, which he said is feeling less sore after games these days and can now withstand heavier minutes and playing on back-to-back nights. He added he feels more comfortable with his shot — he went 5-of-11 from beyond the arc against the Jazz — but lamented that he “can’t make layups, for some reason. I don’t understand.”

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid and James Harden pairing finally ‘working very well’ for the Sixers

“But it’s life,” Maxey said. “It will all come back full circle. As long as we’re winning, I couldn’t care less.”

Maxey could apply the same philosophy to his spot in the Sixers’ rotation — which, for the foreseeable future, could change depending on the night.

“If that’s what they feel like the best option is for the team, then you have to accept that,” Maxey said. “You have to go out there and be a star in whatever role that they give you.”