March 27, 2026
Colleen Claggett/for PhillyVoice
Tyrese Maxey is getting closer to returning for the Sixers.
CAMDEN, N.J. – Late-season practices are rare in the NBA, and on Friday morning the Sixers held what very well may have been their final home practice of the 2025-26 regular season. They made the most of it.
Tyrese Maxey, who had not met with reporters since suffering a tendon injury in his right fifth finger nearly three weeks ago, spoke to the media on Friday afternoon.
Shortly before that, Kelly Oubre Jr., who has been sidelined since March 10, gave a promising update on his status. In between, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse spoke about both players' recoveries, what he saw in the massively successful returns of Paul George and Joel Embiid on Wednesday night and more.
A dispatch from Camden with some notes from a newsworthy practice:
UPDATE: Hours after Maxey spoke to reporters, the Sixers officially listed him as QUESTIONABLE to play on Saturday night against the Charlotte Hornets. This story has been updated to reflect that status.
On his way over to the Sixers' makeshift podium in the front, right corner of their practice gym, Maxey received a basketball and flipped up a few one-handed scoop shots. But he is not quite ready yet. Maxey's approximate reevaluation date is Tuesday, which was supposed to rule him out for the two most important games remaining on the Sixers' schedule: Saturday's road game against Charlotte and Monday's game in Miami against the Heat. Both contests will determine season-series winners and seeding tiebreakers.
Maxey being in play to return ahead of schedule was not remotely hinted at by the star guard himself or anybody else at Sixers practice. But Maxey was in good spirits.
"I just got a new splint," said Maxey, adding that he is focused on doing lots of conditioning work. Maxey has been seen doing sprints on the court often over the last two-plus weeks, and he went from doing left-handed workouts to incorporating some slow right-handed work to now doing more normal-looking shooting. If only he had injured a finger on his left hand.
"If it was up to me, if it was on my left hand," Maxey said, "no one would really even know I was hurt."
Maxey did hurt this same finger late last season, and he acknowledged that it complicates his current recovery. Maxey tried to play through the injury for a long while last year and his shooting numbers went completely into the tank. Maxey did not know if he is expected to play with a splint at any point, but said he would be willing to if needed.
The Sixers have won six out of 10 games with Maxey sidelined; he raved about the performances of his teammates in his absence. He was particularly optimistic about VJ Edgecombe – who he is encouraging to be exactly as aggressive no matter which of his teammates are out there with him – but also spoke about Justin Edwards, who has revived his sluggish sophomore season near its end.
"When we're healthy, we're pretty good," Maxey said. "It's all about being healthy."
Usually, reporters break news. But Oubre, who just crossed his reevaluation date and was given clearance to return to on-court activity, broke some of his own news on Friday.
"I told the training staff," Oubre said, "once I can move my elbow, once I'm able to dribble the ball, shoot the ball, kind of do what I can without any discomfort, I want to play basketball. So I feel ready to play basketball."
Does that mean Oubre is going to play basketball tomorrow in Charlotte?
"Yeah," Oubre said. "I don't know if I'm breaking news or not, but I don't care. Yeah, I'm playing basketball tomorrow, so I'm excited. We've got a good thing going here, and I'm just trying to help push this momentum forward into the postseason."
Oubre, for what it's worth, feels like his game is in a great place right now. He has talked about wanting to slow down and play off of two feet; he feels that work is evident in clips that look more "in control" and "digestible." His three-point shooting is arguably the best it has ever been in his decade-plus in the NBA, and he credits a hand therapist in California named Mo for helping him finally iron out some wrist issues.
The season before joining the Sixers, Oubre hurt his wrist; during and after each of his first two seasons in Philadelphia he cited it as an issue that was harming his three-point accuracy. He indicated at Media Day in September that he had finally gotten some work in to solve the issue.
Nurse later confirmed he expected Oubre to be cleared to play in Charlotte. It creates an interesting dynamic for him to manage...
Oubre has started 36 of his 41 appearances this season. George has started all 28 of his. Dominick Barlow has started 55 times in 62 outings. The Sixers have almost never had all three players available this season, but each combination of two of them have started together for an extended stretch.
Has Nurse thought about how his starting lineups are going to look with only two spots for three players?
"We're obviously thinking about that, for sure," Nurse said. "...I just need to know for sure where everybody is at status-wise before we lock that in."
George is a lock to start, no matter what. Nurse has, on two consecutive occasions, pointed out how tremendous of a fit Barlow is with Embiid. Reading the tea leaves, Nurse might be leaning towards starting Maxey, Edgecombe, George, Barlow and Embiid if his team ever gets back to full strength. But Oubre, a prideful player who prefers to start, will still be a heavy-minute player regardless. He is likely the favorite to close games over Barlow, who Nurse has not always trusted in clutch time because of his troublesome three-point shooting.
In Embiid's return on Wednesday, every second Barlow played was next to Embiid. Nurse said after the game that it was somewhat intentional. The two bigs thrived alongside each other. Embiid will be successful no matter what, and all of his teammates will be better playing next to him no matter what. But Barlow is probably the player whose impact on winning goes up the most when sharing the floor with the former NBA MVP. Efficiency-wise, though, Oubre may be the biggest beneficiary of Embiid's gravity. It is a tricky puzzle.
If Maxey is out but Oubre returns on Saturday, the Sixers could move Quentin Grimes back to the bench and start a massive lineup of Edgecombe, Oubre, George, Barlow and Embiid. But once Maxey is back, on nights Embiid is available the best look is probably the one with Barlow starting the game and Oubre logging more minutes than Barlow, but doing so as a reserve. When Embiid is out, the Sixers could start Maxey, Edgecombe, Oubre, George and Adem Bona, with Barlow coming off the bench. Nurse has said on several occasions that if he ever had a team consistently healthy, he would be happy to make frequent tweaks to starting lineups for the sake of matching up better against other teams. He has not had much leeway to micromanage his rotations and lineups.
A few additional notes:
• Grimes, whose month of March has been extremely encouraging after a multi-month dry spell, is going to have an important role in the team's two biggest games of the season, whether he starts or not.
"I would say that we know what's at stake, we know what's on the line," Grimes said on Friday. "We know it's a tiebreaker, it's 1-1 right now with [Charlotte and Miami]. So just come out with the right mindset, the right attention to detail, the right level of focus, we think we can get the job done."
Grimes, who for the third time this season had an absence caused by an illness on Monday, said he is feeling better and well-rested.
• Charlotte is up first; the Hornets may have a decent record at 39-34 but they turned a corner around the beginning of 2026 and have legitimately been one of the NBA's best teams ever since. In 40 games since Jan. 1, the Hornets are 28-12, tied for the best record in the Eastern Conference, and have a gargantuan, NBA-best +11.5 Net Rating (point differential per 100 possessions). They are tops in offense and sixth-best in defense during that span. Nurse absolutely raved about the Hornets on Friday for about two full minutes:
"Charlotte's obviously a big surprise to everybody, but they're legitimately for real. I mean, they are very good. You guys can look at all the numbers, the record, everything they're doing, who they're beating, all that stuff is totally legitimate. It's not like they're doing it once in a while. It's been a consistent thing here since the turn of the new year. So, yeah, we’ve got to get ready to go. I mean, tomorrow for sure [we will need] tremendous energy. The pace they're playing, the energy, the amount of people they're playing. I think 48 threes a game, coming from all over the place. Everybody's handling it. Everything's happening really fast. So we better be ready. There's just going to be, like – there's just no moments to relax or ease into anything. It's kind of on from the jump ball. So we'll see. I think it's a tremendous test for us, to see how we react to that and see how our bench can react to that too, because we're going to have to play all of these guys that have been playing, which I think is a positive for us. I think we can throw some guys out there, because they're definitely going to play a lot of guys and with a lot of speed… I think there's a couple things to look at, and these might not seem thought-provoking, but I'll say them anyway: one is everybody got healthy. Looking at minutes together, I think they're one or two or three in the league, they're in the top three of minutes together. So that means the guys have been playing every night. Means a lot. And the other one: you think about how we got VJ, and it's really helped our team, right? They've got, like, five years of that, all of them playing together. Super-high draft picks that are all playing together, right? And they're all very good. So that's another thing. [Hornets head coach] Charles Lee's done an amazing job. I think they made a couple nice additions as well to bolster up their bench. Even their second-round picks that they picked this year were excellent [and] are playing. [Rookie center Ryan Kalkbrenner] is a force at the rim. [Rookie wing Sion] James comes off the bench. I mean, they've added a lot of nice pieces, and they've stayed incredibly healthy and they've been very well-coached."
• Ever since a collapsed lung put Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham's All-NBA case in jeopardy – Cunningham has played in 61 games this season as the NBA's infamous 65-game threshold looms – there has been heated debate about whether or not such a rule needs to exist. Maxey, who was perhaps the ultimate symbol of availability in the NBA until his freak accident of a finger injury occurred, is also at 61 games.
Has Maxey, who has a good relationship with Cunningham through their Texas ties, thought about whether or not he may also fall short of hitting 65 games? He had an interesting response:
"Yeah. I mean, one, I hope Cade gets healthy ASAP, man. He's good for the game of basketball. Myself, I just want to get healthy for my teammates, get healthy for this organization, try to make a playoff push, and be right. As far as the rule, the rules are the rules. I don't get to make the rules. That's above my pay grade. I just come in here and play, and go to work every day. I think it is hard to be All-NBA and MVP and all those different things if you don't play a certain amount of games. Do I know what the number should be? No clue. But I do understand where they’re coming from. You’re impactful if you're available, you know what I'm saying? So I understand it. Cade deserves to be in MVP conversations, All-NBA conversations because of what he's done with that organization, that franchise. I just hope he still gets that, and I hope he gets back on the court soon. Myself as well."
One writer's take: Cunningham or Maxey not being eligible for All-NBA would completely disgrace the intended purpose of the 65-game rule, which is to encourage players to not take games off. Maxey is averaging an NBA-high 38.3 minutes – a full minute higher than second place. Maxey has missed 10 games in a row and is still 13th in the NBA in total minutes.
Before bumping into Adem Bona at the end of a game that had already been decided, Maxey had only missed two games all season, both caused by the same illness. Maxey has been the propellent of a team that has had its ceiling limited by the unavailability of Embiid and George, perhaps two of the most clear poster children for why the 65-game rule exists in the first place.
