Tyrese Maxey is built for this

The way the Sixers’ practice facility in Camden is designed, the media only gets to interact with players on the practice floor — by design, of course.

The players have their own parking lot (with a roof for their super nice cars) and entrance on the far end of the building. The media members park amongst the regular people outside the facility gates and our exit is on the opposite end of the building.

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So, you could imagine my surprise when I encountered Tyrese Maxey walking out in the same direction I was.

“You lost?” I asked.

“Nah, I’m getting on LeBron’s helicopter,” Maxey said with a laugh.

He proceeded to walk out of the gated space, awaiting a ride. As I drove away, there was Maxey, an All-NBA performer on a max contract, sitting on the curb, waiting for a ride.

It was quite the dichotomy after seeing James take off from managing partner Josh Harris’ helipad atop the franchise’s business building.

“One of us left on the helicopter,” Maxey said, “the other one sitting on the curb.”

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Helicopter or not, James has acknowledged not every organization and player can handle what comes with rostering arguably the greatest player of all time. We’ve already gotten small tastes of it, with a recent notable example over the whole rumored (and debunked) LeBron-Joel Embiid situation.

There’s attention. There’s scrutiny. It can absolutely become a circus.

But there might not be a better player built for the current situation than Maxey.

Think about all Maxey has been through since he was drafted in 2020. He missed the bulk of training camp that year because he got COVID. He had a weird rookie season. He was too good for Doc Rivers to leave on the bench, but the Hall of Fame coach’s reticence to play young players led to Maxey getting inconsistent minutes. He was also in trade rumors for James Harden and Kyle Lowry, both of whom would eventually become his teammates.

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He saw Ben Simmons hold out and his role increase with the ball in his hands more. He was here for the Harden trade and moved back into an off-ball role. And remember the next year when Rivers told everyone it was Maxey’s idea…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/tyrese-maxey-built-171739098.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-14 17:17:00

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