Sixers mailbag: Is Tyrese Maxey sneaking up on one of the game’s very best guards?

The Sixers have earned some renewed interest with a 7-4 start to the 2025-26 season. Now that they're thoroughly in the flow of a new season, On Pattison is opening the floor to a mailbag. From Tyrese Maxey's stature in the Eastern Conference to Paul George's spot in the rotation and Nick Nurse's viability as the steward of Philadelphia's big-picture goals, this first round of fan questions covered a wide range of topics.

What do you think makes this 76ers team in those games without Embiid different from last season ?

— Gilbe Nese (@HojoTakeda) November 10, 2025

This is a curiosity that has been on my mind since before I solicited any questions from fans. I think the primary answer is youth, and that's an umbrella term for a couple things. First is athleticism. This younger group is more athletic and faster than what we'd grown accustomed to in Philadelphia. Second is the fact that younger, less-established players are inherently unknown. So there's more room for surprise. You'd probably heard that Trendon Watford was a jack-of-all-trades with a great chemistry with Maxey. Did you know how it would look? Maybe not. Did you know that Jabari Walker could read off-ball defenders well enough to instinctually cut for shots at the rim, or that he could open up quickly out of a short roll for pocket passes that put him in position to connect both sides of the floor? Maybe not.

The second answer is that the effort is simply night and day from last season. This group has guys who are playing for their NBA lives and established veterans who have pride at stake after last season's disaster. Andre Drummond's resurgence is a perfect example of that. Maxey's ascent from over-taxed Robin to Joel Embiid's Batman to perhaps the best guard in the East is another example of that. Nick Nurse alludes to this whenever he talks about this team digging itself out of last season's hole, but sometimes it takes getting knocked down several pegs to take a big step forward.

When Paul George returns, who will lose minutes?

— Colin (@Fightinphilz) November 12, 2025

Suspected this would be asked in some way, shape or form. The easy answer is probably Watford because he's a natural forward, so the swap-out isn't that dramatic a change for the other guys in the lineup. He's also started the fewest games of the non-center starters, so he's built less equity than the other candidates have thus far. From a skill set standpoint, you need ball-handling and playmaking in the second unit. Too many possessions are living and dying with Quentin Grimes. So bringing Watford off the bench would help relieve that.

Truth be told, we've talked about this in the media room after games. Another beat writer and I landed on this — VJ Edgecombe. 

Now before you get upset, let me be clear: this is not to say that I think Edgecombe has fallen sharply enough to lose his spot. His early offensive output was unsustainable and the fatigue from early back-to-backs is likely contributing to his recent slump. The reason I believe Edgecombe to be a viable candidate to lose his starting spot is that it certainly shouldn't be Kelly Oubre Jr. and neither candidate is a true spacer around Maxey. 

The goal should be to decrease Maxey's workload, and George's spacing and ball-handling, even at his age, would lighten Maxey's responsibilities. I think Nurse would likely go chalk and just take Watford out. But, if we're being honest, Edgecombe is not helping Maxey's spacing right now. There are also a considerable number of possessions in which Edgecombe gets off the ball and fades out of focus, perhaps because his handle could get exposed with too many reps. So while there are times he brings the ball up the floor, Edgecombe isn't functionally serving as a secondary ball-handler on the possession. George would do that, relegating Maxey to more off-ball work.

Is Nurse the best coach for this team, given 3rd quarter performance and lousy player minutes management.

— tomg18.bsky.social (@tomg18.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 12:44 PM

I'm split on this — like, 55/45 split. I lean in favor of 'yes' as of this writing, if only because he hasn't really gotten a fair shake here. He spent last season largely re-arranging desk chairs on the Titanic. The year prior, his first in Philadelphia, the Sixers were 29-14 and firmly one of the top teams in the East when Embiid's left knee started to become a real problem. If you recall, their offense was organized and they were often blitzing teams through three quarters, leaving little to doubt in the fourth quarter.

On one hand, Embiid was on a historic scoring pace toward a second MVP award, so there is probably some "Embiid carried them" noise in how good they were. That's evidenced by the fact that they fell off a cliff the moment Jonathan Kuminga landed on his knee.

I would classify last season as "unsalvageable" regardless of who was head coach, even if Nurse was quite underwhelming in his part.

So that takes us to year three.

He's had one playoff series, with a highly-compromised Embiid and Tobias Harris doing Tobias Harris things.

I think his offense is better than he gets credit for. The NBA isn't Hoosiers, even if we would all like the game to be played like it is in a movie. There is some degree of offensive innovation across the league, but almost every team employs some variation of the same concepts. Even if the movement isn't there every possession, the Sixers have generally been trained on when to cut and how to read a coverage to set the appropriate screens.

The strongest vote in his favor is the franchise's player development under Nurse's watch. Embiid got better after winning MVP with Nurse at the helm. Maxey became an All-Star and is now firmly in All-NBA conversations. The core of their future is built on ostensible draft-night hits in Jared McCain and Edgecombe. We can argue that those things might've happened independent of Nurse. That's not something that can be proved. Right now, I would judge him by the way his players feel about him and the buy-in he's getting from this group. His tactical management will come into focus when and if this team gets to the playoffs in a position to do some damage.

Is Maxey the second best player in the East?

— Kellen Pastore (@kellenpastore.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 2:30 PM

I think the other two candidates would have to be Cade Cunningham and Donovan Mitchell. Cunningham might have the better case, averaging 9.9 assists on a team that is currently 19th in the league in effective field goal percentage. The Pistons are doing an awful lot of winning, which also helps his case. But Maxey is shooting far better from three, and his assist-to-turnover ratio is comfortably better than Cunningham's is. I think it's close and could be talked into Cunningham, but Maxey is averaging almost five more points per game, too.

Mitchell is closer to Maxey than Cunningham is in scoring, but the playmaking doesn't really compare. The other thing in Mitchell's favor is that the Cleveland Cavaliers are 9.1 points better than the opposition when he's on the floor. The Sixers are 5.4 points better than their foes when Maxey is on the court. Mitchell's raw number is quite impressive. Maxey's number is impressive in the context that Embiid is limited and George has yet to play.

If you're feeling feisty, compare Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's output to Maxey's. Many will laugh at you. The numbers won't. Maxey is gaining ground.