In the early portion of the 2025-26 NBA season, much has been made about the slew of high profile injuries sidelining key players and prompting discourse on whether the increased pace and general vigor of the game could be a contributing factor. Other parts of the discussion focus on the realities of navigating the 82-game schedule in the NBA, with teams clearly identifying potential "schedule losses" on an all-too-frequent basis.
Until or unless the schedule is trimmed (in terms of games) or expanded (in terms of overall time), some of the challenges are unavoidable. The game isn't going to slow down anytime soon and, with the athletes in the sport operating at the highest level ever, the relentless required to navigate a 48-minute game leads to certain give-backs that are simply necessary. One such trade-off is that, in general, players are on the floor for fewer minutes per game than in previous eras.
Of course, there are some head coaches that do not seem to subscribe to that consensus thinking, with the most famous recent example being now-departed New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. In 2024-25, three of the top five players on the minutes-per-game leaderboard came from the Knicks, with another player (Jalen Brunson) also cracking the top 15. This was the norm for Thibodeau but, while it was often framed as if he was the only head coach operating in similar fashion, another coach has also leaned hard into deployment for certain players.
That head coach is Nick Nurse, who now leads the Philadelphia 76ers after shepherding the Toronto Raptors for a five-season run that included an NBA title with Kawhi Leonard in 2019. In the back half of his tenure in Toronto, players like Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet were annual staples at the top of the minutes leaderboard and, right now, Tyrese Maxey is receiving an even more elevated treatment with the 76ers.
Is Tyrese Maxey playing too much?
Early-season caveats certainly apply with the 76ers only completing 19 games on their 82-game schedule. However, Maxey is currently averaging a whopping 40.68 minutes per game. Some of that is at least slightly juiced by a double-overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday evening but, even prior to that, Maxey was still above 40 minutes per game with at least 32 minutes in every contest and 38 minutes or more in 15 of his first 19 games.
Some of that uptick in deployment is understandable for Maxey, especially in a world in which the 76ers have navigated injury-related absences for key players like Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Jared McCain. In fact, rookie No. 3 pick VJ Edgecombe is also within the top 10 of the NBA in minutes per game, proving that it's not only Maxey being leaned on for more minutes. Still, Maxey's early-season deployment is turning heads for its outlier nature.
As of Dec. 1, Maxey is averaging more than three full minutes per game more than any other player in the NBA. His 40.68 minutes per game would also be the most for any NBA player since Monta Ellis is 2009-10 and, simply put, the league has changed quite a bit since then, in addition to the improvements in technology and the measurement of player performance.
Beyond that, one could argue that Maxey's deployment is also not fully in line with the realities of Philadelphia's situation. While the 76ers are certainly trying to compete in the short term, almost no one would view the team as a ready-made NBA title contender, especially given the uncertainties with Embiid on a nightly basis. Maxey is also coming off a season in which he missed 30 games, and the 25-year-old is Philadelphia's best player, who is also happens to be signed to a long-term pact.
Broadly, that set of circumstances should lead to a bit more responsibility with Maxey's minutes, even at the potential risk of lessened win-loss results. To be clear, there is certainly a chance that Maxey could need to play 40-plus minutes on a semiregular basis, but it also stands to reason that it could be better for the player and, by proxy, for the long-term forecast of the Sixers, if Maxey is not run into the ground trying to keep a relatively low-ceiling Sixers team afloat.