Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey is coming to terms with his new reserve role, writes Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Maxey was demoted to a bench role in favor of the more defensively oriented De’Anthony Melton.
“Sometimes you have to be the bigger person,” Maxey noted “I feel like it was kind of trending that way. But I’m a professional at the end of the day.”
The 22-year-old is still having a solid scoring season for Philadelphia, averaging 20.8 PPG, 3.9 APG, 3.0 RPG, and 0.9 SPG.
There’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- The Sixers’ All-Star tandem of Joel Embiid and James Harden are finally clicking midway through their first full season together, Pompey posits in another article. “He’s so dominant and versatile to where I’m sure he’s never played with a play-maker like me,” Harden said of the Philadelphia center. “So it’s just constant communication to where he hasn’t probably rolled this much before and I haven’t had a big that pops like that.”
- After an erratic six games at home, the current core players for the Raptors face some big-picture questions, writes Doug Smith of The Toronto Star. At 20-24, Toronto heads toward the February 9 trade deadline with an uncertain future. Smith notes that the team’s front office brain trust of Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster may make some significant changes to the club’s roster if the Raptors can’t start winning. The Raptors boast several movable players on reasonable deals.
- Celtics reserve forward Sam Hauser has been mired in a major shooting slump for the last month. Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston wonders if team president Brad Stevens may opt to make a trade to replace Hauser’s lagging output for a Boston team with title hopes. Over the past 23 games, Hauser has seen his minutes slashed to 12.2 MPG and his shooting splits have nosedived to .348/.284/.250.
Celtics have a very good 8-man rotation of Tatum, Brown, Horford, R. Williams, G. Williams, White, Smart and Brogdon. Then you have Pritchard.
It would be nice to get someone as a backup wing who is better than Hauser, but they can just play Pritchard more and use White or Brogdan as the backup wing. Not an issue.
The sixers look like the pass few teams. 2nd rd exit. Sucks, because Embiid only has but so long
Furkan, Spring, Thybulle, 29 1st Top-10 Protected for…
Tragic, Caruso, and Green OR Caruso and Derrick Jones Jr.
Only problem is really the $ coming back puts them further into the tax.
Embiid – Harrell / Reed
Tobias – Niang / DJJ
PJ – Caruso / House
Melton – Maxey
Harden – Milton
Hauser is in a three point shooting slump because he’s shooting threes on the move. Grant Williams, Malcom Brogdon, Derrick White, Al Horford all get set before they shoot the three. For some reason Sam Hauser is expected to shoot threes on the run. If Coach would get Hauser shots where he’s set, he’d make them. As I’ve written before Hauser will shoot threes off the move next year. He’s not ready this year.
In the meantime, Hauser’s slump is giving Payton Pritchard more playing time. As it should be. Payton is more ready to help.
Go Celtics!
You are WRONG about Hausers shooting splits…
He is at 44%/39.6%/61.,5%
Maybe you meant for the last month?
link to basketball-reference.com