December 28, 2025
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Can the Sixers get both Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey humming at once?
When Tyrese Maxey leads the Sixers into battle against one of the best defensive groups in modern NBA history on Sunday afternoon, he will not have Joel Embiid by his side.
Embiid, listed as out with right knee injury management and a right ankle sprain for the team's road contest against the Oklahoma City Thunder, is finding his stride offensively of late, most recently scoring 31 efficient points against the Chicago Bulls. But Embiid's back-to-back appearances since returning from a brief absence have happened at the same time as Maxey's worst two-game stretch of the season.
As Maxey grabs the torch from Embiid as the Sixers' most important player, there has been plenty of recent debate: Does Embiid even help Maxey find peak form anymore, or is he holding the sixth-year star back?
In this week's Sunday stats, an analysis of the relationship between Maxey's superstar leap and Embiid's lack of availability:
Tyrese Maxey's field goal percentage across the Sixers' last two games.
Across the Sixers' losses to Chicago on Friday and to the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, Maxey has only made 12 of his 38 shot attempts. He has gone significant periods of time looking strikingly passive, a stark contrast from the go-getter mentality that has netted the best results of his NBA career.
Maxey is one of the single fastest players in the NBA, and a bulk of the Sixers' shocking success without Embiid available this season has been generated by Maxey and the rest of the team embracing a fast-paced style. Even before constant knee issues worsened his mobility, Embiid was one of the slowest-paced stars in the NBA, a methodical half-court scorer who thrives on manipulating the game and frequently forces stoppages with his foul-drawing.
Now, Embiid's movement skills are a far cry from what they used to be – in addition to turning him from an elite rim protector into a complete defensive liability that has forced Embiid to be more reliant than ever on that slow half-court scoring. The Sixers can win multiple games in a row without Embiid on the floor by playing with tremendous pace and space, but whenever he steps back onto the floor there will be a sudden shift back to the slower pace Embiid likes.
Many years of evidence exist to suggest that Maxey is far and away his best self when he can lean on Embiid, from the massive amount of attention Embiid draws to the lethal two-man game the Sixers' two best players have enjoyed for years. But over these last two games, with Embiid more limited than he has ever been in any other season, the fit has looked a lot worse. How much of that is an anecdotal sense driven by recency bias? How much is it backed up by numbers?
Take a look at Maxey's numbers without Embiid on the floor this year versus his production when out there with Embiid:
| Tyrese Maxey without Joel Embiid | Tyrese Maxey with Joel Embiid |
| 809 minutes | 266 minutes |
| 30.8 USG% | 26.4 USG% |
| 57.9 TS% | 62.3 TS% |
| 39.2 points per 100 possessions | 32.4 points per 100 possessions |
| 9.2 free throw attempts per 100 possessions | 5.5 free throw attempts per 100 possessions |
| 2.7 turnovers per 100 possessions | 4.5 turnovers per 100 possessions |
| .371 three-point frequency | .558 three-point frequency |
| .293 rim frequency | .217 rim frequency |
| 115.3 Offensive Rating | 119.2 Offensive Rating |
| 112.9 Defensive Rating | 117.0 Defensive Rating |
| +2.3 Net Rating | +2.2 Net Rating |
There are many discrepancies here worth evaluating, and the first is how Maxey's shot diet changes with Embiid out there. It is natural that an interior scoring force like Embiid will create more three-point shooting opportunities for his teammates, but Maxey taking over 55 percent of his shots from long range when sharing the floor with Embiid does seem like a bit much. Among qualified players with usage rates of at least 25.0 percent, only Stephen Curry and James Harden have tried at least 55 percent of their field goals from beyond the arc.
In the same vein, Maxey's rim frequency goes down a decent bit with Embiid on the floor; that much should be expected. But perhaps the most obvious statistical driver of Maxey's individual gains this season is his major uptick in volume shooting free throws, and his volume there is almost chopped in half with Embiid on the floor.
The one thing that is immensely difficult to parse is Maxey, whose low-turnover nature has been one of his strongest qualities for years, having considerably more turnovers with Embiid versus without him. Maxey's usage is lower when Embiid plays and defenses cannot pay nearly as much attention to him. Perhaps it is merely noise; at the very least it is worth monitoring moving forward.
But, with all of that being said, Maxey remains a more efficient player – clearly – when Embiid is out there with him versus when he is the Sixers' lone star. The Sixers, to this point, have had a much better offense with Maxey and Embiid than with only Maxey, despite how often it has felt like Embiid has bogged it down.
To that end, maximizing Maxey and maximizing the Sixers are not the exact same goal. And whatever this team's ceiling is, it cannot possibly be reached without Maxey and Embiid handling massive scoring workloads. It is inarguable that Embiid is central to any worlds in which the Sixers become not just a serious playoff team, but a possible championship contender.
The counterargument to that, though, is solid: no team reliant on Embiid to the degree the Sixers are can reasonably expect to compete at that level or anything close anymore, and so the emphasis should no longer be on squeezing every bit of short-term juice out of this roster. Embiid's days as a centerpiece of the franchise may very well be numbered due to his health, while Maxey, 25, is the player to whom Embiid is passing the torch.
Ever since the 2024-25 season devolved from one in which the Sixers expected to contend for a title to one in which they tanked for multiple months – that worked out well for them – the conversation surrounding the franchise has shifted. For nearly the entirety of Embiid's career, the focus has been on maximizing championship odds in the upcoming season. But as that goal looks less realistic with every injury setback the former NBA MVP experiences, it becomes easier to advocate for deemphasizing Embiid's on-court preferences and leaning into what makes Maxey special. After years of true title contention, this is now the unfortunate reality of where the Sixers are as an organization.
