The most stable person is not necessarily the boss: Maxi s two sides!

With the new season approaching, with Embiid and George's health still unclear, Maxi is the most stable presence in the 76ers with unknown prospects.

For this young defender, whether Embiid can take over the team's main attack choice after returning from injury, there are two polar opinions among the fans. Some believe that Maxi may usher in a highlight season at the MVP level, while others believe that his ceiling is the second choice of a strong team, and even the ace boss who plays a bad team needs to be considered.

Both statements are traceable. The former can be inferred by referring to the progress trends of Maxi's first four years of his career. His growth signs do have the chance to reach the best lineup level in the new season. The stagnation of progress last year was mainly due to the injuries of his main teammates. The latter view is mainly aimed at Maxi's overall improvement. Last season, while maintaining an average of 26.3 points and 6.1 assists per game, the real shooting percentage fell to the second lowest 56% after the rookie year.

As a player who was not good at three-point shooting in college and had only 30.1% of three-point shooting in rookie year, Maxi was able to shoot more than 42% of three-point shooting in the second and third year of his career, ranking among the top five three-point shooting in the league. This is absolutely incredible performance.

This is mainly attributed to Maxi's top-level fixed-point three-pointer. Since the second year of his career, Maxi has maintained an efficient three-point reception level every year, with a shooting percentage of more than 40% for three consecutive seasons. Especially considering that Maxi's three-pointer is not a simple catch-up move, which also includes a running move after handing over, or a large three-pointer that teammates quickly passes out after attracting pinched attacks on the wing.

Previously, thanks to the restraint of the two tactical starting points of Harden and Embiid, Maxi's three-point shooting has made significant progress. The three-point shooting percentage fell to 34.6% this year, mainly due to the team's lack of Embiid's high-level cover and the fluctuations caused by Maxi's physical energy consumption. There should be no need to worry too much about the decline in this link. On the contrary, Maxi has never developed the ability to hold the ball and hold the three-pointer that he can't develop.

In addition, Maxi's dribbling three-pointers began in the second year of his career, and as the number of shots increased, the shooting percentage also declined. The biggest decline comes from the first season when Harden left the team and Maxi took over the team's main control in the 2023-24 season. Maxi, who was a master of Harden, shot up to 39.7% in three-pointers in a step back three-pointer, hitting large three-pointers many times at critical moments to save the team. The only shortcoming was that the season's three-pointers had only 28.8% shooting percentage, and after average, only 32.8% of the ball-holding three-pointers were left. But if we look at the standards of a young player who has a lot of ball responsibility in the first year, this is already an acceptable level.

However, Maxi only shot 32% of the ball and three-point shooting percentage in the second consecutive season, which is significantly inferior to other teams' top outside cores, such as Edwards 38.2%, Brunson 37.1%, Lillard 35%, Mitchell 34.3%, Trae Young 34.2%, Harden 33.8%, etc.

Compared with the outside constraints caused by the outstanding three-pointer without the ball, Maxi's three-pointer holding the ball actually limits his threat of possessing the ball as the main controller. However, based on the overall three-point performance, based on the shooting talent, Maxi, as the core of possessing the ball from the outside, does have certain development potential.

In addition, Maxi's biggest advantage lies in his speed, and on this basis, combined with the final touch, his fast attack began to become a killer weapon. For three consecutive seasons, the average fast break score per game is at the top level of the league. Although the fast break efficiency has slightly declined due to the small three-point shooting in the past two seasons, the overall quality of Maxi's fast break threat is still quite online.

In addition, his shots at the basket were also very good in positional battles. Looking at the entire league, only Morant's shots at the basket were better than Maxi. Even though his wingspan conditions were not excellent and his breakthrough was monotonous and lacked speed change, he still made a lot of shots with medium hit rate under the crowded space last season, which was enough to show his excellent finishing touch.

Combining the above-mentioned three-point shooting and the end of the basket, this is the basic offensive mode that an outside ball-holding core should have, but it is precisely these two events, which is why Maxi is not very suitable as the team's first offensive core.

First of all, his passing skills have not made much progress since entering the league. Although the turnover rate is low enough, his passing tandem ability is still slightly insufficient under the standards of a main attacking ball player. The assist rate during the rookie period was only 20%, and it has been basically below 30% in the past two years. Compared with other star players, Halliburton, 38.9%, Trae Young, 46.4%, Brunson, 32.3%, Morant, 36.1%, and Cunningham, there is still a big gap.

Then, by the standards of a double-shock guard, he also has the problem of insufficient offensive methods in offensive scoring.

The rhythm of breakthrough is monotonous. Usually after breaking through the front line, there is only the choice of attacking the frame. Scoring or passing decisions are rarely performed in the middle distance area. In addition to shooting at the basket, most of them choose to throw near the near frame, with a shooting percentage of 40%.

The offensive proportion from the medium and long distances to the three-point line is also the least among all the star guards mentioned above, with only 11.5%. Even though the mid-range shooting percentage this season is 43.8%, which is a lot better than the 35.1% last season, it is difficult to be considered a stable offensive method, and it is also very easy to be targeted in the playoff position battle.

Although the sample may not be large, this link is most likely to be the most lacking part of Maxi's offensive technology..

combined with another data, in terms of hit rate and control rounds, based on a typical backcourt core standard, a large part of Maxi's offense requires more than 7 dribbling times. According to the official website statistics, Maxi often has a higher shooting percentage with fewer dribbling. After 7 attacks with dribbling or more, the effective shooting percentage even falls below 50%, and the shooting percentage drop is at the top of the league's All-Star guards.

It is obvious that too much dribbling is harmful and unhelpful to Maxi. Not only can it not find the offensive rhythm, but it is limited by insufficient offensive skills and it is difficult to find better opportunities after dribbling multiple times. This also leads to Maxi's offensive methods being more inclined toward the finisher rather than a core ball holder.

As for the statement that many fans think that Maxi is correcting, they naturally hope that the young defender can replace Embiid's sluggish offensive performance in the playoffs. But considering the targeted defense in the playoffs, most guards will face the problems of reduced offensive production at the basket and reduced efficiency in the playoffs. Therefore, in order to attack more efficiently, most guards will develop more long two-pointers away from the penalty area to increase the offensive mode.

But Maxi is an exception in the back line. His proportion of shots at the basket in the first round of 2024 increased to 34.6%. Instead, the proportion of offense from the paint area to the three-point line has been greatly reduced; although the shooting percentage at the basket also declined, this magic ball style will not have much negative impact on conventional offenses.

However, at the critical moment of the game, due to the lack of ability to develop in the middle distance, as long as he is blocked outside the penalty area, there is basically no offensive threat. Or taking double-teams directly outside the three-point line will also amplify the disadvantage of Maxi's lack of pass control, making it difficult for Philadelphia's position to attack with Maxi as the core to achieve results.

To sum up, although Maxi has made significant progress in recent seasons, he is still not optimistic about his first offensive choice to succeed the team next season. The reason is not because of the team's leadership temperament or offensive stability at critical moments, but more because he is still a distance away from the team's ace in the passing and control organization, and his shortcomings in offensive methods have also led to him being more inclined to be an efficient ending player at this stage.

Of course, next season may be the career intersection between Embiid and Maxi. Although Embiid is the team's first offensive choice at the moment, it is likely to release more opportunities and focus more energy on organizing covers and other parts to activate the team's offense. While Maxi accepts more offensive roles, it also needs to see whether he can continue to polish his offensive skills and strive to officially take over the Philadelphia baton in the near future.