Tyrese Maxey vows to reset mentally, then come back to Sixers with ‘edge’ following trying season

Tyrese Maxey walked to the podium Sunday afternoon with a basketball in his hands, and a tan splint still strapped around his right pinkie finger.

“Did y’all miss me?” the 76ers’ star point guard quipped.

It had been more than a month since Maxey formally faced the media, a responsibility previously put on his plate over and over during the Sixers’ miserable 2024-25 season that ended with 122-102 home loss to the Chicago Bulls. In his time away to nurse the finger sprain, Maxey has reflected on a fifth NBA season during which he averaged a career-high 26.3 points per game and noticeably improved as a defender, but saw his shooting efficiency dip while dealing with mounting losses for the first time in his basketball life.

The 24-year-old candidly repeated how much it all stunk. And that, after a mental break, Maxey hopes that feeling fuels the Sixers’ offseason.

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“Everybody in this room,” Maxey said, “… next year, you should have a different type of edge about yourself. You should go into the summer with a lot to work on and a lot to prove — myself included.”

Maxey estimates it will take another month for the pain and swelling in his finger to calm down enough for him to return to basketball activities. When he sustained the injury during a Feb. 11 loss against the Toronto Raptors, he vowed to try to play through it in an attempt to counter what had already devolved into an injury-plagued Sixers season. Former MVP Joel Embiid played in only 19 games, and flashy offseason addition Paul George missed half the season.

But Maxey “just couldn’t do it,” he said, especially as a shooter. He connected on only 32.4% of his field-goal attempts in his final seven games played, and missed 18 of his final 19 three-point attempts in his last three games.

That ended a season that, while self-evaluating his performance, he split into two segments.

After becoming a first-time All-Star in 2023-24 — then signing a four-year max contract last summer — Maxey acknowledged he was displeased with his play while the Sixers stumbled out to 3-14 record. Maxey said he felt “a lot of weight on my shoulders” as the losses piled up, and family and friends from his inner circle noticed. So did Nurse, who on Sunday said Maxey was not “his old, chipper self” early in the season while getting “the gauntlet” thrown at him by opposing defenses with Embiid and George mostly sidelined with knee issues.

“I learned a lot about myself,” Maxey added. “I learned a lot how to dig yourself out of holes, and who to lean on.”

Once Maxey made a concerted effort to rediscover his joy, however, he felt “at peace” with his play. He took note of the variety of defensive coverages he continued to face as that top offensive option, and how he could get better in crunch-time scenarios. He averaged 1.8 steals per game, a defensive step that particularly encourages president of basketball operations Daryl Morey. He emphasized positivity with teammates up and down the roster.

In saying publicly Sunday that he would like to play one more NBA season with the Sixers, veteran guard Kyle Lowry said a significant reason is because “you guys all know how I feel about Tyrese Maxey.”

“His future is as bright as anybody’s in this league,” Lowry said. “ … He’s the reason that it’s just been a blessing to be a part of this, because he’s such a phenomenal kid and a phenomenal talent.”

Still, Maxey never got a legitimate opportunity to build on-court chemistry with what the Sixers hoped would be a championship-caliber star trio with Embiid and George.

Maxey on Sunday referenced a preseason comment that they were all just “names on a paper” and, because they missed a combined 134 games, “I don’t think we ever really figured it out.” All three players are under contract until through at least 2026-27 — George has a player option for 2027-28 — and Maxey echoed George’s hope shared Sunday that they all spend time on and off the court together this summer.

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Maxey also expressed remorse for Embiid, who underwent arthroscopic surgery earlier this week to address an ongoing knee issue. Maxey recalled when “I gave him the ball a couple times in moments where I think that he’ll do something, and he just couldn’t.” He praised Embiid for being a supportive teammate while sidelined, after reports surfaced in November that Maxey had called out Embiid for being late to team activities during a lengthy postgame meeting in Miami. And Maxey said he trusts Embiid will do whatever he can to rebuild himself into “the Joel Embiid that we know and love.”

“However his knee reacts, that’s up to God,” Maxey said. “But I have the ultimate faith in Joel in working extremely hard to get back to what he was.”

Heading into his sixth season, Nurse wants Maxey to continue extending his range to become “one of these guys that you should never gasp when he pulls up from 35 feet.” That will give the dynamic point guard more space to operate, the coach said, and allow Maxey to tap into the “pretty good package” of midrange moves and shots “when the game calls for it.”

“We need to pull out of him a little bit more next year,” Nurse said.

But first, Maxey will wait for his finger to fully heal. He will take that mental break. And then, he will put in the work to come back with an edge.

“I have, like, zero worries about him,” Nurse said. “He’s heading this direction [motions hand upward], and he’s not even close to where he’s going to get to.”