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Par Joël Pütz | Journaliste sportif
Philadelphia may have suffered a complete wreck in 2024-25, but Nick Nurse’s roster remains brimming with talent. A young Sixers star was recently compared to new MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander…
What can we expect from the Sixers in 2025-26? It’s difficult to say after such a disastrous season. Instead of competing for a title, the franchise completely missed the playoffs. This is a logical continuation of a campaign punctuated by injuries to key stars like Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey.
Truth be told, it’s unclear what Philly’s foundation will be for the coming years. Should they really continue to build around Embiid? The center is certainly a former MVP, but his repeated absences are costly, and his behavior isn’t making everyone happy. As for Paul George, he’s coming off one of his worst seasons in his career, distinguished more by his podcasts than his performances.
Doc Rivers admires Tyrese Maxey
Ultimately, the one who seems to offer the most guarantees is Maxey. The guard has steadily improved since his draft in 2020 and despite missing 30 games this season, he still dropped a career-high averaging over 26 points. Doc Rivers, who once coached him in Philadelphia, praised the teammate of Frenchman Guerschon Yabusele during his appearance on Bill Simmons’ podcast:
(Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) reminds me a lot of Maxey…I coached Shai hard, I coached Maxey hard. Both of them could take it, they wanted more, they wanted to learn…You think they are these nice guys. You said he comes off as this nice guy. Shai is a stone-blooded killer. He does not care about making you happy when you get on the floor.
Rivers knows what he’s talking about, having briefly coached the Canadian superstar in 2018-19, during his rookie season. He readily admits that trading him for Kawhi Leonard wasn’t easy, quite the opposite in fact:
I was so happy that we got Kawhi, and it bothered me to make that call to Shai. That was a tough call.
He handled it like such a pro, but you also felt, it was like this, “I am going to make you pay for that trade”. I loved him…I mean, come on. No one saw this…Sam Cassell was really high on him and almost devastated we were going to trade him… I called Sam, and Sam says, “We just gave away an assassin. We better win it because this kid is gonna come back and haunt all of us”.
