Philadelphia 76ers: Tyrese Maxey needs to play over Matisse Thybulle

The Philadelphia 76ers need to consistently play their young PG.

Every time Tyrese Maxey has checked into a Philadelphia 76ers game, it’s been electric.

Sure, he’s not De’Aaron Fox or Jamal Murray – not yet anyway – but the 20-year-old Dallas, Texas native just has a pension for bringing a certain… transcendent energy with his herky-jerky style that galvanizes his teammates and generates a massive pop from the virtual crowd.

Even when the Sixers are playing lights out first half basketball, which hasn’t happened all too frequently so far this season, the insertion of Maxey just seems to bring a spark unlike any other look the team currently offers, especially when he’s paired up with Dwight Howard (more on that here).

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But here’s the thing, Doc Rivers didn’t want this to happen – not yet anyway.

Heading into the preseason, the Sixers rotation looked more or less set. They’d roll with their starting five – a much-improved unit from the season prior – and then effectively perform a hockey-style line switch to a second unit comprised of Shake Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, Matisse Thybulle, Mike Scott, and Dwight Howard.

Sure, Rivers would still ‘shake’ things up and get creative with Simmons-plus-shooters looks or insert Milton into the game for Green a few minutes into the first quarter, but that’s to be expected.

What wasn’t expected, however, was the emergence of Maxey in the Sixers’ first preseason game.

Logging 12 minutes exclusively in the fourth quarter, Maxey shined at the Sixers’ 11th man, scoring a tidy eight points and three assists on 4-6 shots from the field. He then followed that performance up with a similarly solid showing in the team’s preseason finale, dropping 11 in 17 minutes of action not limited to the fourth quarter.

In a normal year, with a longer training camp and a more robust preseason, maybe the Sixers would have been able to work things out a bit more before the live bullets started to fly in Game 1. Maybe Maxey would have gotten some more looks playing alongside Curry, Milton, or even Ben Simmons, or he’d have settled into more of a typical rookie role cleaning the boards in games whether the score is plus/minus 20 points. Instead, Maxey’s playing time has been erratic; earning double-digit minutes in one game, single digits in the next.

But like… why? It’s not like Maxey has been terrible in any of his first four NBA contests, or even bad, really. He’s only turned the ball over once in each of the team’s first three games and has played meaningful minutes in all four. Sure, his 0-5 3 point shooting percentage leaves a bit to be desired, as does his field goal percentage of 33.3, but those are fairly typical rookie growing pains – especially for a playmaking college combo guard who wasn’t routinely tasked with taking over games on his own. You sort of have to push through those games to get to the better showing down the line.

Maybe it’s Matisse Thybulle.

Since falling out of favor during the preseason – in large part due to the lingering effects of a training camp injury – Thybulle has gradually seen his minutes increase from game to game. He went from zero minutes against Washington to seven against the Knicks, eight against the Cavs, and finally, a season-high 12 in the Sixers’ win over ~~Toronto~~ Tampa Bay Raptors. In those games, Thybulle has scored zero points, taken three shots, and only has a single rebound, steal, and turnover to his name.

In 2020-21, Thybulle has become an offensive stopper. He’s hesitant to take a shot no matter how open, only ever takes a handful of dribbles before bailing out of the situation, and just looks overwhelmed on the offensive end of the court. In a weird twist of fate, Thybulle hasn’t been all that effective on defense either, often chasing around players he’d have locked down a season prior while trying to recklessly overcompensate for his lack of offensive fortitude.

Thybulle also has the unfortunate honor of having amassed a -13 Real Plus-Minus over his first four games of action, which is a relatively misleading stat but isn’t what you want to see from a defense-first player tasked with shutting down an opposing scorer.

In a way, Thybulle has sort of become the anti-Maxey in that whenever he gets on the court; the excitement level takes a serious dip.

Now I get the idea of trying to get Thybulle more involved in the offense, I really do. It’s been rather tough seeing him go from a confident rookie pickpocket into a marginal player who will all but surely find himself a fixture of the trade market as we approach the trade deadline. In a perfect world, Thybulle would have taken a step forward in the post-NBA bubble world, and he’d be an undeniable rotation player on a team with serious playoff aspirations, but instead, he’s fallen clearly behind Green and even Korkmaz for minutes on the wing.

I’m not saying the Sixers need to remove Thybulle from their rotation entirely; they just shouldn’t do so at the expense of Maxey.

Based on his performances so far this season, Maxey needs to settle into the sort of consistent role Rivers’ rigid rotation is known for. He needs to work his shooting out on the court, get used to playing with the same players game-in and game-out, and grow into the player many projected would all but surely land in the lottery in this year’s draft.

And as for Thybulle? Give him a few minutes from Green, a few from Scott, even a few of Harris’ minutes. In the modern-day NBA, where players are routinely asked to play up or down a position without batting an eye, Thybulle shouldn’t have any issue finding minutes as a defense-focused winger. What the Sixers shouldn’t do, however, is take the ball out of a playmakers hands to instead give extended opportunities to a player disinterested in actually touching the ball.

Between you and me, that feels pretty counter-intuitive to what the Sixers are trying to do this season.

Next. Tobias Harris (probably) isn’t going anywhere. dark

The NBA regular season is a time for experimentation. Teams try to find looks that work, casually weed out ones that don’t, and just generally coast along until the real bullets start to fly come playoff time. If the Philadelphia 76ers want to play Tyrese Maxey, Matisse Thybulle, or even Paul Reed 20 minutes in one game, two in the next, and negative two in the third, that’s entirely their prerogative. I’m just simply pointing out that when Maxey hits the court, the Sixers tend to play a more exciting brand of basketball than when Thybulle takes his place, and the latter shouldn’t come at the expense of the former.