PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Tyrese Maxey has an entire season of NBA experience, so he should be expected to dominate summer league action. That is exactly what he did in the Sixers' summer squad 95-73 blowout of the Dallas Mavericks. But it's the way he dominated that's an encouraging sign for the 20-year-old.
Maxey played like the best player on the court — scoring 21 points, 19 of which came in the first half, on 8-of-15 from the floor and 3-of-6 from three-point range.
Afterwards when asked about what his personal goals have been for this offseason, Maxey said, "Coach Doc [Rivers] told me before I left to just watch the film and work on running the team, being able to run the team, being able to run a team, being able to get guys in the right spot, find out where guys like the ball. I think that's one thing I really took to heart. And then another thing I wanted to work on is just shooting the ball off the dribble, making the right passes, just because I work extremely hard on shooting, so I wanted to be able to show I was able to shoot the ball."
So far so good. Maxey was clearly the best player on the floor Monday and the main reason why his team was able to win that game with ease.
"He's an experienced player trying to make the next jump to be in the rotation next year," Sixers summer league coach Brian Adams said postgame.
Maxey saw playing time off and on during his rookie season and quickly became a fan favorite because of his exciting fearless play, overall attitude and strong work ethic. What Rivers instructed Maxey to work on is basically the definition of a point guard -- a position that's a huge question mark for the 76ers solely because of all the rumors circulating about Ben Simmons' future in Philadelphia.
What will happen with Simmons remains to be seen. It's also a stretch to expect Maxey to suddenly become the starting point guard. If the 76ers deal Simmons, it's fair to assume they receive an All-Star-caliber playmaker in return.
But, for now, there's a lot of reasons to be excited about Maxey's potential -- and his performance in the Sixers summer league opener is another example why.
"I just wanna get better every single day. I've been telling everybody my goal this offseason is to get 1% better every day, and so far I think I've been doing that and I'm just gonna continue."