The Ringer NBA Show - Breaking Down the Tyrese Haliburton Trade, Plus Tyrese Maxey's Game | Upside High

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks return to break down the news of the Tyrese Haliburton trade to the Indiana Pacers and what might have been behind a move like this (00:24). Plus, they break down the game of Tyrese Maxey of the 76ers and how he can grow in Philadelphia (24:40). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Football is back and so is the Ringer NFL show. Coming at you five days a week with wall-to-wall coverage from recapping the Sunday games, giving a player perspective, deep dives, and previewing the coming slate. Check out the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Folks, basketball is very good. Basketball can be very hectic at times, especially this time of year. The trade deadline is coming up this week. There's a lot of moving pieces in the NBA, but, you know, there's nobody that I'd rather

talk about any of this with. You know, there's nobody I'd rather talk about it more than with John Charks. John, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. I guess we'll just tell the truth. So we actually recorded a pod about Tyrese Halliburton and the Kings this Tuesday morning. And then we're like, we're feeling good, loving the pod. And then right before I'm supposed to go out, this trade comes down.

And we're like, we'll shoot. So now we're back. Yeah. Before we launch into that, yeah, we were getting earlier, we talked a little bit about the C.J. McCollum trade that took. place. Portland sent CJ to the Pelicans. And we were talking kind of as far as

young player adjacency goes there, Anthony Simons may have motivated that. That's something that we talked about earlier. His sort of the way he's come on lately maybe open the door for them to that be a more palatable situation, a cheaper option for them to,

a guy who has a lot of upside. Somebody that we want to talk about more in the future, right? Anthony Simon, somebody that's showing a lot of promise. For sure, for sure. I mean, he's become like, not the franchise player, but clearly they're making a lot of moves in Portland based around him now. Yeah, totally.

And like I said, that's somebody that people have reached out to us about and we're definitely putting, yeah, putting a pin in that. We're going to hit on them soon. But the Halliburton thing is king. I mean, it's dominated the conversation today. I was out pacing in my yard as I have to because I have a hyperactive dog and I had to go out in the yard and sort of just walk around aimlessly. I checked my phone, could not believe it, could not believe that the Kings traded Tyrese Halliburton.

So before we go into the why, what motivated this, let's specify who all was in the trade. So the Kings are sending Tyrese Halliburton, Buddy Heald, Tristan Thompson, and a 2027 second rounder to the Pacers for DeMontas a bonus, Justin Holliday, and Jeremy Lamb. Lamb was listed twice initially in the initial woge tweet here to there. But what do you think motivated this? I mean, it seems like the consensus among people is like hands in the air, why the hell would the kings do this? Because on the surface, Halliburton has really seemed to have won over the basketball public with over Fox. I don't know if it was as clear in the beginning,

but he's clearly cemented himself as an asset that everybody thought they were going to keep. Charks, why would they do this? What type of a decision do you think this was? Well, there's a lot of factors that go into it. I'm also glad you actually gave the trade and you caught yourself because I was definitely going to call you about him about that for just launching into the Halliburton discussion without any pretext. Where do you want to start with Sacramento as I think they were in a position, to me, it all goes

back to drafting Tyrese Halliburton and Davy on Mitchell when you already had Deeran Fox and consecutive drafts. So that leads in this position where you have three young point guards who are all kind of eating into each other's minutes, eating into each other's touches, eating into each other's responsibility and role on the team. And it just felt, even from the start of the season, the Aaron Fox has looked like himself at all all season. And I just felt like there was too many cooks in the kitchen. They kind of had to make a trade. And I think the GM, McMahon McNair, he said after they drafted Mitchell, he said, oh, well, we just drafted best player available.

but the logic of that breaks down pretty fast when, okay, yeah, we can make a trade later, but now everybody knows you want to make a trade, right? So you really have no leverage at that point. And then on top of that, all your assets are making each other worse because I think Mitchell has learned very good this year, primarily because he's stuck in a very small role. Fox has really struggled sharing the ball these other two guys.

And Halliburton's been the best player, which we can get into in a second. but Halliburton is by far of those three guards, the one who's most easily, he can fit into almost any situation. So he's thriving in the chaos of Sacramento while these other two guards are struggling. And I think the question is less,

why did the Kings trade Halliburton as much as if I'm the Pacers, I would want Halliburton back in a trade, right? It's a two-way street. I think Indiana said, okay, maybe I don't know, I can't say exactly how the trade negotiations went down. It would not shock me, though, if Indiana said, we don't want Deeran Fox on his

massive contract underperforming this season. We'd much not have the younger point guard in Halliburton. So if you want Subonus, this is the trade you have to make. That's my initial suspicion, at least. The thing that this all hinges on to me is that Fox, the assets that we had heard in the conversations about what Fox could bring back potentially to supplement Halliburton, didn't seem as strong as what if they pivoted and wanted to say, okay, well, since Halliburton is more valuable, and the Kings are lucky because Halliburton saved their ass twice now, even though they decided not to keep, you know,

thank God that he wanted to push his way to the Kings. I have no idea. I don't know about the genesis of that story. Why? Because I'd heard that he did say he singled out the Kings and wanted to go to them. But now they're in this situation where this past rebuild didn't really work ostensibly, and you're seeing a situation where they pivoted and said, okay, we could keep Halliburton and see what Fox can get us.

The appetite for that seemed a lot lower. The appetite for Halliburton around the league, I think people see a guy who's like insanely versatile. We'll talk more about that if you're a Pacer's fan. I don't know if you're a Pacer's fan, if you would have been listening to a show like ours. Good to have you if you're with us. But we'll talk more about what he is like as a player. You know, they've pivoted.

And I think that it was just going to kind of prevent them from being in the desert, like the total desert for a little longer. But if I'm looking at this team on the king's side of it, I know these guys aren't, this isn't like the youngest player part of the conversation, but the kings now have swapped a guy who was a great playmaker, a guy who's like is malleable, contextually,

he could play with a lot of different situations like you said. For a guy like Sabonis, who is a really high value. you player. He's one of the best screen setters, one of the best elbow creators in the game right now. Do you think there's a potential where he could balance? Like, he's not going to cannibalize Fox's touches as much. He's somebody that could fit with him. Like, he's one of the better, like, dribble handoff players in the world. What does it, to me, this doesn't really change to the king. It doesn't loft them into, like, a serious competitive team. What do you think it does

for the Kings in the short term? Does it really change the situation for them? What, what you think just quickly here? I think, you know, the race for the 10th seat is on. You know, a Sacramento in New Orleans clearly value getting into the playing race. I think if you're Sacramento, you're hoping that Fox will play better without Halliburton here, which is a risky move, but you're hoping, okay, we can move Deeran back into a bigger role. And I think what makes us so fascinating is that, so Deeran Fox has been out the last two weeks. And it's been kind of a weird situation. You look at the quotes,

Alvin Gentry even said, oh, yeah, if it was the playoffs, he'd be playing. And then everyone was like, okay, what's going on here? And the assumption was, oh, they're holding out Deere and Fox so they can trade them. But maybe they are holding out Deeran Fox so they can showcase Tyreys Halliburton.

Because that's what's been so fascinating about this, is the last two weeks, the Kings have been kind of the Tyrese Halliburton Davy on Mitchell show. And that's been a very different looking team. Halliburton, since Fox has been out, has been one of the highest touch guys in the entire league. The offense has really run through him. You said it was in the high 90s, didn't you? His touches.

It was like up in the 90s, almost 100? 96 touches per game in the last eight games. And for reference, I think Yokic leads the league and touches it like 100. So that's extremely high. Like that's at the top. Yeah. Yeah. So we really kind of got to see Tyrese Halliburton in a primary role over the last eight games.

And then he had the game against the king against the Sixers where he dropped 38 and everyone was kind of trying to connect the dots there about a possible trade because he's been linked to the Sixers for like two years now, basically, with the whole Simmons thing. And I think it's a good point of any to say, like, let's talk about Tyrese Halliburton and why everyone was kind of so up in arms about it. Because he has looked really good in the stretch. Yes, yes. And so Scouting Report, if you don't know much about Tyrese Halliburton, this is a guy who is a point guard. who is a super high efficiency player. The thing that we were like really, really in on him about when he was coming into the draft

is this guy could fit in any situation because he can create a lot of efficiency in production without needing to be ball dominant. He is a really clever playmaker. He's a guy who's grown as a pick and roll player early in his career. We were talking earlier about if you look at Halliburton's shot chart,

he's a versatile shooter. You can jump in on this anywhere you like. I mean, I think that he's like a dribble pull-up three-point shooter. I think that he can catch and shoot. I think he can catch and shoot and relocate. Offensively, where do you see? How would you describe beyond that? What else would you add to that about him as an offensive player, like it's a score?

Hey, drop the stat about Tyrese with Draymond Gritte and Chris Paul. I think that's a good place to start your stat you had. Yeah, when we're talking about high efficiency, and producing a lot without needing the ball. So this is a sort of a window, like a stat filter that really clarifies what we're talking about. Only four players in the NBA, just check out this company, have done over 30% assist percentage, over 55% true shooting, and under 20% usage. So that's a lot of production, low usage. Four players have done that.

Three of them are Draymond Green, Chris Paul, and Kyle Lauer. and the other one is Tyrese Halliburton. That's a guy who has a maturity that is beyond his years. He's somebody that can fit in a lot of situations. Something that's funny is you and I were talking about, like the Kings decided to draft Mitchell, which seemed like a ripple out moment for this for the Kings. A person they passed on was Chris Duarte.

Well, okay, lo and behold, he gets traded to Indiana. Now he's going to be paired with Duarte. What do you think about the Duarte-Halliburton pairing? And there's more to it, but just that one to start with. Yeah, I mean, I think what made it interesting in Sacramento the last few weeks was because with Deeran Fox is tough because teams don't really respect his jump shot. So when he's playing off the ball, he's just not very effective. And that kind of limits the players around him because they can't hold the ball and have him like impact the defense, right? They're going to get, the defense is going to sag off de Aaron.

Whereas with Tyrese and Davion, they could play more back and forth, where they going on off the ball interchangeable. And I think that's the idea, too, if you're Indiana now with Dwarte and Halliburton. You've got a lot of size now. You've had a pretty big back court going 6-5-66. And they both kind of have that on-off ability. You would say Tyrese is going to be the lead guy. D'Worte will be the secondary guy, most likely. Malcolm Brogden's there, but I don't expect them to bring back Malcolm Brogden this season.

They already, I believe they have the fifth worst record in the league right now. So there's really no incentive for Indiana to do anything. but really bottom out this season, try to get a top four pick and then turn it around next season. And I think what makes Halliburton so good and why I think people like... I mean, I personally,

I just love watching Halliburton play. In the draft, we were kind of calling him the third ball brother. Because just the way he moves the ball. Like, he was, as we were saying, he's number three in touches over the last eight games. He's also number three in passes.

So it's not like a high touch style, like a Luca or a James Hardin where he's not, he's the center of everything. He's dribbling the ball all the time. Like when Tyrese has the ball, he's always looking to move it. And it's funny. So I profiled Tyrese going into his sophomore year at Iowa State.

And I remember talking to his college coach, Steve Prom, and Prom was telling me how Tyresees is one of the first players where he brought him into his preseason meeting. He said, you need to shoot the ball more. You pass way too much. And that just like never happens with basketball players, even point guards, right? The overall majority of basketball players

want to shoot the ball, they want to get their shots up, and they kind of have to be held back. Whereas Tyrese almost has to be pushed forward because he's always looking to pass. And it's funny, like a lot of his pick and rolls, he'll make, he'll get the screen, he'll come around it,

but then he'll wait the extra half second where everyone else would just shoot the ball, then he'll dump it off to one of his big men or a shooter at the very last second. It's like, I feel like that's the kind of player everybody likes, to play with, right? Like, I would just think, like, if you play with Tyrese Halliburton, you're going to get

the ball. You're going to get it in the right spots. And, like, yeah, I just love the idea of building around him because, like, that stat said, you've got a really high efficiency player. He really passes the ball. And he can defend multiple positions. So it's just such a seamless fit no matter where he goes. Yeah, you're talking about, like, he's somebody that can really exploit, like, the window

of an opportunity for a pass. You're talking about holding it for that extra second. Something that he's really good at, and Pacers fans are going to see this, is in the pick and roll specifically, Tyrese is a three-level score. Like, he's not so much, he's not as much of a foul generator.

He doesn't get to the line a ton. He's pretty light of build, which affects him defensively, too. So he's more of a clever off-ball player, so I wouldn't expect that from him. He could grow into that. But if you look at him, like, as a pick-and-roll player, he'll get into the middle of the floor,

and he's so tough because he has a great floater game in that, you know, in the paint, he's really good at selling that he's going to shoot that floater. So he can engage the big guy. And if you respond to the floater, he's really good at kicking it to the wing. And then he can also make that lob to the big. And somebody that I think that it's justifiable, you know, woes reported that the sources had kind of said that Miles was excited about playing with Halliburton. Absolutely. Also, I think it's going to have an impact on our guy, Isaiah Jackson. He's a good lob thrower.

I think that it's just interesting for the Pacers. It's a coup for them. I mean, I've seen a lot of Pacers fans celebrating. Do you think that they got somebody with like star upside as something that I would ask you? That is the question. I think it'll be really interesting these next few months to see kind of like we've been saying the last few games in Sacramento, where it was really the first time in his NBA career where he got to have the offense run through him and he wasn't playing off de Aaron. The next few months in Indiana will be the same kind of thing. The question with Tyrese has always been, how high can the offense max out? He is such a great passer. He's not a natural score. He kind of more scores on the flow of the offense. He has a stepback shot. The jumper is a little unwieldy. So it's not the prettiest looking jumper you ever see in your life, but for sure.

I always say unpopular mechanics. That's what I always say. He's got a funky awkwardness to the way that he shoots. It's like a little out in front of his face, a little weird, but it goes in. And it's gone in at every level. Like he can make shots. Like he's like a 40% dribble. Okay, I'll tell you a few Tyree stories since we're talking about him based on that.

So when I profiled him, I kind of did a deep dive, talked to a lot of his coaches growing up. And his main coach in like high school, middle school is trainer. he was telling me, Tyrese used to shoot from like his knees and coming into high school. And he said, this is never going to work. You have to totally change your shot if you want to play at a higher level. And he just said, I told Tyrese they did mic and drills for like hours and hours in the summer. And Tyrese tried like an hour to do like just to do mic and drills, not even a jump shot. So the mic and drill is like the fundamentals drill of any young basketball player named for George Mike

where he just sat under the basket, left hand off the glass, right hand off the glass. It's like the most fundamental thing you can possibly do, basically. And so he just spent like hours and hours working that and rebuilding his shot. And it's almost like, it's like, I think the word I were talking about was like brutally efficient. Like it's not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it's a brutally efficient way of getting the shot to the basket, essentially. Yeah, he's over.

I did a Tyrese Albert, and I know we're pumping up things we've done in the past. Go read that piece from charge. I did a video where I actually charted and chronicled this exact thing. I went back and found like the early, I was like going back and watching, I forget the name of the high school he played for, Oshkosh, I think, is the school. And like was just watching him. He did literally shoot from his knees and push it up through his chin and you could slowly watch his elbow come up as he got older and got stronger. But this is a smart guy. That's the thing. I mean, Halliburton, we talked about that efficiency stat. The commonality with like CP3, Dramond, Kyle, yeah, those guys.

That is the company of like intelligent players. This is a guy that's going to play in the league and be, if he's this smart now, just think about where he's going to be years from now. And something, did you, you were going to pop in there on something? I was just going to say, that's the kind of player he is, that people like me and Kyle would be featuring him years ago. Like that just kind of tells you the kind of player he is that we, like the basketball nerd crowd, the ones who probably got so upset about the trade are so into

him because of that. And it's funny he's on the team with Malcolm Brogden because Brogden's nickname in college was like the chief of staff or something like that. They thought it would be a feature senator or something, right? Well, Tyrese's coach told me, and I thought it was just an interesting thing to say. He said, okay, Tyrese eventually will be the kind of guy who would be the president of the players union when he's older. That's just the kind of his personality, natural leader, people gravitate towards him. And my favorite story with Halliburton. So he's in Wisconsin.

He actually was teammates with Tyler Hero in middle school on an AAU team. And this is like a, at that level, it's like independent. They're not affiliated. So at the AAU circuit, it's like Nike Under Armour Adidas. And like all the top teams play on these circuits. These are the circuits that get the most attention nationally. And so Tyrese and Tyler Hero, they're both playing really well. and these bigger programs in Wisconsin are saying,

okay, we want you guys to come play for us. We're higher profile. We can boost your name if you can play for us. This is what you do. This is kind of like the pecking order of young youth basketball. And Tyree Taliban is like, I can't do that. I can't leave this team, these coaches who have done so much for me, they've invested in me.

I'm going to stick with them. And then the story is heroes like, are you crazy, bro? Like, what is wrong with you? We got to go get our, get our, shine. And so then that's, so Hero leaves, and that's why Hero was an All-American coming out of high school, whereas Halliburton was like a three-star recruit. No one even really heard of because he wasn't playing on the shoe circuits. Yeah, that can happen with guys sometimes. I know we're getting off on like something we love to talk about grassroots, you know, endless well of nerd and him down

there. But I mean, that can cause guys. He's been on this track of being like people doubting him. He proves him wrong when really he's just kind of been this good the whole time if you pay attention. Anybody that pays attention to Hal Burton loves him to death. Something else that I wanted to ask you about, well, I wanted to tack on there too. I love any offense where you have interchangeability at one, two, three. And if you can have a pick and roll player at one, two, three, healed actually is going to be interesting too, because he'll have actually something to space four where he hasn't really had an opportunity to do that yet. That'll be an interesting thing to see if he has a renaissance. Rick Carlisle is a part of this. You are a Carlisle, Scott.

or somebody that knows a lot. How do you feel about this Carlisle Halliburton dynamic? What do you expect from it? Give us paint a picture if you can't. I think the main thing with Carlisle is she's just all about efficiency. So when like the trade came down, my first thought was I'll guarantee you Carlisle said, I want Halliburton, not Fox.

Like that's more of the player Carlisle prefers. He loves spacing and he loves efficiency. Neither one of those things is Dierrez. Hallmark. It was the same thing. Like you're really seeing Carlisle now start to reshape the team according to his preferences. They shipped out Karris Levert a couple days ago too. Under the same, I think the same basic logic, Carlisle wants to always have four shooters on the floor and a role man. Well, if you look at like a four shooters in a role man system, that doesn't really fit Sabonis's game either because Sabonis needs to be on a bigger team with rim protection behind him, right? So he really

can't be a role man because he needs a five with him. And even like you have Turner, but that's still two bigs. It just doesn't really fit the kind of system Carlyle wants. Whereas Halliburton, he's so efficient, such a smart player, he can be your point guard on your pick and roll system, or he can be a number two off another point guard. And that would be my guess is that interchangeability at efficiency is why Carlisle would have targeted him. I cannot wait to watch. Actually, Sam's making the point. he's going to be closer to be now. So I'm like two hours away. I might be able to pop up and see them.

I will say this. I'll wait to watch next season. I kind of expect Indiana to be tanking the rest of this year. Right? Well, imagine what that pick that's looming there. I mean, it's just amazing that Indiana is one of these franchises that like threads the needle.

They never, you know, they always have find a way to like thread that needle so that they can stay kind of in the conversation. We'll see how high they can go from this. But that pick hovering there is really interesting. I was kind of playing out scenarios. I'm like, if they could get in that four or five range,

what if they got somebody like A.J. Griffin or something like that. Well, right now, they have the fifth worst record. Right now, the team is basically Halliburton, Dwarte, Buddy Healed, and G-leaguers. I saw a good point that Scott Agnes, who runs a great Pacer's newsletter for anyone, Pacers fans out there, he said, he kind of pointed back to that Paul George trade, where he said, they went and traded Paul George for younger players on their rookie deals with upside, aka Subonis, and I've done it again with Halliburton. It's a big splash in terms of, I don't know if I'd say it's like block, like huge like colossal

league shifting type deal, but it could be down the row because Halliburton could definitely, I mean, I think he's my favorite player in the deal. I like, and I like Subonis. I think this Subonish for Sean Holmes thing is interesting. I kind of wonder if it's going to open the door for SAC to make like another move. But yeah, it's for the Pacers, it's a. Huge win. Huge win for them.

Well, it's a blockbuster in upside high circles. It is for sure. For our brand, big day. Big day. And it's going to be really interesting to watch this play out for the Pacers, see where they can go. And speaking of trades, talking about, speaking of the shifting landscape of the league involving young players,

we're going to talk about another player for the 76ers, Tyrese Maxie and his development. And we're going to do that after the break. So, sharks, Tyrese Maxi, another guy who is like a scoring guard, a guy who's in a situation with a superstar in Philadelphia. What have you seen from Tyrese Maxie in year two that you're liking? When you're a lead guard, when you're six foot two, six foot three, to maximize yourself, you're going to have to have the ball. And last year, Maxi was playing off Simmons, playing off MBE in a pretty small role. He showed flashes.

this year with Simmons's, I guess what word do you want to use, like self-imposed exile or however you want to phrase it. Self-imposed exile. He's like Batman secluded in the west wing of his house. Yeah, we don't know what's going on over there. Will he be back? I don't know. This is Batman before the third one where he's just lost the will to live and he's just sitting

at his cave all day. So Maxie, with Simmons gone, now Maxie's become the lead guard in Philadelphia. And he's really getting a chance to show what he can do. he's scoring a lot. He's really developed some chemistry with Joelle and Bede. He's just been a really impressive player, especially for a guy who was taking 21st. He had a big game just for the most relevant aspect of this conversation.

I had a big game against Chicago last night, 16 points, 3 for 4 from 3, 6 assists, 3 steals in 38 minutes. But you're right about the opportunity is huge. And I was going to ask you, I think this kind of ties to what the conversation was about, since we like to track development on this show, we like to talk about where you come from, where you are, where you're going, basically.

We like to kind of track that. Maxie coming into the league, what do you think that the sort of consensus opinion on him, let's give an idea for people maybe who haven't seen him, how would you describe his profile as a player? Like what's his preference or player type? How does Tyrese play in general? Well, he's just talking.

I guess he's about six. 263. It's the same general size range you've been talking about. Really aggressive. The knock on him coming out of Kentucky was, okay, he's not really a point guard, but he's got point guard size.

How much is it going to be featured on offense? And the thought was, oh, playing with Ben Simmons would be a great fit for Tyree Smaxy because he can guard point guards without having to run point himself. And I think the most relevant part of it is the fact that now he's become,

a major piece in this potential James Harden and Ben Simmons trade where Brooklyn is wanting a lot of assets to go flip hard into Philly and Philly's saying we're not going to do that. We're not going to give up Tyrese Maxi. I believe the quote was like he's off the trade table or something like that.

Yeah. He's become a really, he's really had a huge surge in in Philadelphia and become a really valuable piece for them. I was going to say another word that I had written down here is kinetic. Like Tyrese Maxie is insanely kinetic

when you're watching him play on the floor. He's always moving, high energy, sort of like a solidly built. I was saying he has some parallels with like Colin Sexton in terms of how he's built. He's not quite as like vertically explosive as Sexton, but he's very fast. I wrote down here that he is third in the NBA

in distance traveled per game. And he's just very, very fast. fast with the ball. One of the big questions for him, though, I think has been that sort of dial between, you talked about him not playing point guard necessarily, him sort of like transitioning and moving towards assuming some of those duties, you know, because a lot of what Philadelphia does, they run more post offense. We know, understandably justifiably because they had the best post-up player. I mean, him and Yokic, I would say. Who would you say overall, just real quick, if you had to say who's a better post-scorer general, like producing offense.

We don't get me in trouble right now, Kyle. Just real quick. Who would you take? They're both great. I think it's like with Embed and Yokic, it's less about like low post, obviously low post is a big part of their game. I think for Embed the last two years, it's that high post, the face-up 18-footer, the ability to create his own shot from the middle of the floor.

I think that's what's really elevated him over the last couple years is that transition. Torts not just strictly five feet from the rim, drop set dunk. He's a pretty well-rounded score now at seven feet tall too. And I guess the basic idea here is when they took Maxie, I was just imagining him orbiting Joelle M.B., like a comet, like this just ball of energy. It's always a word I use for him where he just can kind of go get buckets

and do things like that. But he has slowly improved over the past three years, and I'm tying his Kentucky team. played a lot more off the ball. He played with Ashton Hagen's and Emmanuel quickly at Kentucky, a three guard lineup. But he's been playing more pick and roll in the last three years. His efficiency has gone up from 0.92 in Kentucky to 0.98 in year one for Philly and in year three, he's 1.03. And carrying his reps have gone up too. Last year, it was 35.3% of his possessions. This year, it's 47.8. So he has the ball.

in his hands a lot, and he's shooting the ball a lot better, taking care of the ball really well. What do you think about him? You know, we're talking about that transition from score for people who don't know, for people who do. He's got like a crazy middle game. He's kind of got like that like he's got that like bucket getter type game, would you say? Like he's not, he doesn't strike me as like a pure shooter, but he's not a bad shooter. I talk about Sexton. I think that Max's shooting upside is a lot higher than Sexton's. What do you feel about? What do you feel about? What What do you feel like the pluses are of his offensive game before we talk about the playmaking part of it? I think downhill, like getting to the rim, the middle, or you said the middle game, the floater game.

Like we talked about the Memphis Grizzlies a few weeks ago and how they have so many guys to shoot floaters from like 12 feet, 10 feet. Maxi would fit in right there. It's like that's just creating your own shot. That's putting pressure on the defense, right? If you're getting to 12 feet, 10 feet and shooting, they've got to collapse on you a little bit. and that opens up the rest of your game. I think it's worth pointing out because this is not very intuitive

and this is something I've noticed with John Calipari guards. I think this is an important point. So I think the reason Tyrese Maxi went 21 is to go back to his college team. He's playing with Emmanuel quickly who went a little behind him

and they're both playing off the ball off another guard named Ashton Higgins. So here's the thing. Good control. What's happening is, is John Calipari is doing a really good job of finding NBA caliber guards in high school. And he's collecting them on his team in college and not necessarily maximizing them. So what's happening is a lot of times John Calapari's guards actually have a bigger role

in the NBA than they did in college. And where that becomes important is because in the draft, so much of the draft is statistics, And it's like your profile. And so, okay, if you're the top score on a top team, teams are going to look at you a little harder. Whereas if you're like the number three score on a good team, like it's like a little harder to believe in you in a bigger role in the NBA because intuitively you would think, okay, everyone and every NBA player is going to have a big role in college and have to learn

to adapt to a smaller role in the NBA. But with Kentucky guards, that's not happening. It's the reverse is happening. And I think it actually could help their development is they're being forced to be in a smaller role in college and learning how to play on and off the ball. And then they already have that skill set in their bag. They get to the NBA. And then actually they're getting bigger roles.

Yeah, it seems like it'd be easier to go to start from that place. And that's one of the arguments that I've heard people make for playing it like a high major program like that with other talented players is because it gives, it pulls you away from that like Cole Anthony. model where it's like you're going towards this situation where you're going to be the focal point of the offense. And it's like you're going to be playing in sort of a like talent hierarchy that is going to most reflect what you're going to be like at the next level. And I think whenever we're draft and players, it seems like we're more willing to pull guys earlier in the draft who have shown less counting stat production because we're like, it's no big deal. Like, we're not going to be leaning on you to do that. You know, I,

feel like the leniency is a lot higher. Whereas somebody like Maxi, we're like, okay, when you come into the league, we didn't see you play on ball, we're not super confident about you doing that. Do you kind of see what I'm saying about? Like, it seems like people are less willing to assume that the production, the on ball production is going to be there. And I think one of the reasons that Cal does that specifically is, I've said this a million times is that the thing about the high major coaches is that they have to also win games.

These are like high major programs that are under pressure to win games. I don't think that Cal specifically, just stylistically, he doesn't like to put shooters who might create like wastefulness that would cause them to lose games. Like he didn't put Jamal Murray at point guard. He didn't put Tyler, a hero at point guard. He didn't put Tyrese Maxie at point guard. I think that's why he does it. And then we see these guys coming to the league and they sort of blossom into these roles. Okay.

So I like that you went back a little bit. And I think here's an interesting way to look at this. So I went back to look at recruiting rankings for all these Kentucky guards. And I think what stands out, so Tyrese Maxi, he's number 10 in the recruiting rankings for his class. And a couple of the point guards

who are put above him in those rankings, these are guys I think most NBA fans might have heard of. So Nico Mannion, he was drafted by the Warriors last year, Scotty Lewis, I believe he's on the Hornets on a G-League contract, and Cole Anthony. And the point is that after like the top three or four or five in the recruiting rankings,

it becomes pretty jumbled pretty fast. And so just because like you're number six versus number 15, I found that distinction doesn't mean much. And here's what I'm getting at. So that's 2019. In 2018, Emmanuel quickly was the 23rd best player in his class. Tyler Hero was 35th. In 2017, Shea Gilles-Gaulis-Alexander,

was 30th. So what I'm saying is I think John Calapari would be a really good NBA scout, is what I'm saying, is I think he has a really good ability to dive into like a recruiting class and say, who are the lead guards who are the best? Who do I actually want? And that range from like 10 to 30 where there's like maybe six or seven lead guards. I think Cal's shown the ability to find the one or two guys who are the best prospects and say, that's the guy I want at Kentucky. he has the most talent. So he's grabbing these best NBA guards and they're putting them in a spot

where they're not getting to show what they can fully do in college. All that to say is, like the more and more I've looked at this, the more I think secondary guards at Kentucky, you have to really, really evaluate carefully because they're often better than what they seem in college.

Yeah, for that reason that I was saying too is that like sometimes there are skills there that are like on ball potential like creator skills. that he's just not willing stylistically. Like he doesn't like above the break, threes and pick and roll. He's not a big fan. It wasn't in the past.

You're talking about him evaluating people. He had to be convinced to get Tyler Hero and beg to get him. So I'll just throw that in there. I don't want to give him too much credit. But talking about Maxi, he has a really great, like, off speed game. I've noticed that, like, he can, he's gotten really better at, like, really good at,

like, finishing off the high glass. Either side, he's solid with that. He really gets his body into people. He has a sort of odd, have you noticed how he has sort of an odd angling, odd leaning way that he shoots the ball? He seems like he's leaning downhill a lot when he shoots the ball or he has just a lot of that like awkward off balance game. He's very crafty. I think that all falls into the category of like crafty where he's not like Maxxie's a good athlete. I wouldn't say he's like the best athlete on the floor rarely.

So he's just like he's learned how to maximize what he has. Maximeys, right? Scoring a little bit of unconventional ways. That's not bad. I like that. No, it's bad. It's definitely bad. So we're talking about we know he could do those things. We know that you can throw him in. This is just sort of, his minutes have just jumped up a lot.

His efficiencies have jumped as well. So last year he was 30.1% from 3, 40% this year. He's up to his rebounds, 3.5. The assists are up, 4.8. The points are up. 16.9. True shootings up. dribble pull-up jumpers are up. The assists are what I'm interested in, though.

Do you see what do we think the passing? Because I don't think that he's like an intuitive, inherent, surgical playmaking technician. I don't see him as that type of player. But I do see him as somebody who is on the same sort of trajectory as like a scoring wing. He's just in a smaller frame. Like I see him as sort of a steward of good offense, making like simple passes. He doesn't have to get in and like tweak the offense in the way that like another playmaker would. Do you think that his upside as a playmaker is enough for Philadelphia?

Or do you think that like does the harden conversation factor into this, that they need another player like that who can manipulate the defense? How do you think that his playmaking upside affects like what Philly is going to do going forward and should it? You hesitate to put a ceiling on a guy who's already exceeded expectations, right? So I don't want to say, oh, this guy can't be an all-star point guard. He's obviously made a huge leap this year. I've always kind of put him in like the Terry Rozier bucket of like, this is a guy who could get 18 to 20 points if he's not a primary ball handler on a good team.

And if he's playing off, you know, he's already shown he can play off an elite star so you can have that offensive production. And if you can get playmaking from a different position as well as your point guard, Like I would not expect something like James Harden. I think I ever expect Terry, I mean, I don't ever expect Maxie to be like running 30 pick and rolls a game, being the hub of the offense and like holding the ball the whole time. I'd be surprised if that happened. But in a smaller role, like a Terry Rozier, he's playing off Lamello, he can be a consistent score, provides secondary playmaking. That's what I would expect.

I don't expect him to be the focal point of a good team. But, I mean, he's already exceed expectations, so it's hard to say, you know. Yeah, I mean, if he ever really gets into that situation, like, he's pretty good at, like, coming off of a pick and roll, seeing single coverage, throwing it to the guy who's popping or, you know, kicking across the floor. He doesn't really play with, like, a slow pace. But I don't know that he necessarily needs to. I think that, like, right now at this age, like, one of the big weapons that he has is the fact that he is super fast. Like, he needs to exploit that, get downhill. They have shooters.

You know, I think that him with Seth Curry is an interesting pairing, too. But I don't know that he necessarily needs to, has to play that way because of his strengths right now. It's kind of interesting to pit him against or sort of pair him against like Darius Garland. I think Garland's a little bit more, has like more ball skills, not necessarily as much of a like blitz you with his speed type player. But if he does start to add some of that like manipulative playmaking, he could flirt with the All-Star conversation. I could see that because at that point, he becomes like a more balanced player.

Thanks for joining us on Upside High. If you were new to this show, this is what we do. Every single week, we talk about young players, the youth movement in basketball, who's in the NBA. They're thriving. Why? Why not? Who's headed towards the NBA? Things like that.

And keep an eye on the ringer NBA feed coming up because as we saw, things can change in a New York minute. Things can change at the drop of a hat. watch the NBA feed, all the different shows that we have. We're going to be talking about these things up to the minute as fast and as frequent and as in-depth as we possibly can because we love it. We know you love it too. And you can find that on Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts.

And check out Charks' work on the ringer.com and my stuff on YouTube as well. So we'll see you next time.