Tyrese Maxey has clearly been in the lab this summer and appears primed to take another step forward.
An already miserable cover for opposing defenses, the lightning-quick pure shooter, Tyrese Maxey, has been in the lab this summer working hard to improve even more.
A new workout video has surfaced on NBA.com featuring the soon-to-be fifth-year (can you believe it?) guard out of Kentucky. Year five? Where did the time go? It feels like just yesterday he was coming in for a struggling Ben Simmons in a monster road playoff spot to save the season during the 2021 playoffs. And yet in other ways, it feels like that Atlanta series was a Sixers’ lifetime ago.
In the video, Hanlen, Maxey’s full-time trainer, who happens to also be Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum’s skills trainer, instructs Tyrese to work on finishing off of two legs. Unlike say Donovan Mitchell (who routinely finishes off two legs) Maxey as you well know, loves to use his blazing quickness to blow by defenders before rising up off of one leg for a floater or layup. So here they want to make his finishing ability even more powerful, dynamic, and unpredictable. Often those two-legged jump stops allow scorers to draw contact and get more free throws.
Hanlen has talked in the past about analyzing one’s own weaknesses during the offseason, and finding ways defenses have had success stopping you. Armed with that knowledge and film work, Hanlen helps his clients then tailor their workouts to improving all those areas that were less strong. For Maxey, my guess is they felt he was leaving some low-hanging foul drawing fruit on the vine.
In the opening of the clip Hanlen tells Maxey: “take a full speed dribble, just kind of give him a half [fake], let ’em fly by and finish.”
Tyrese is seen then taking a power dribble from the wing, coming to a jump stop on two legs, pump faking to get an imaginary defender in the air, before finishing the layup.
Hanlen says “yeah perfect,” before quipping “see how proud Jo [Embiid] would be if you shot-faked and made that layup?”
Maxey comedically does a decent Embiid impression: “Oh my god, he can jump off two feet!” he says with a big smile as he hits his next drill.
That interaction signals to me that Embiid has been urging Maxey to improve his foul-baiting ability. Embiid, the master of drawing contact, can probably spot 15 times per game Maxey could do a little bit more to put opposing defenders in foul-trouble jail. When last we saw Maxey, he was getting almost zero benefit of the doubt from NBA officials on potential foul calls in comparison to New York’s Jalen Brunson — when the Knicks eliminated the Sixers in round one.
Hopefully, that changes quickly heading into the 2024-2025 regular season, now just over one month away.
“I’ve always prided myself on being able to get up early and workout early,” a Maxey voiceover tells us in the clip. “Whatever time the gym’s available, that’s what time my first workouts gonna be,” Maxey says. “Every single season I come back, I’m trying to fine tune my game. And add something new, giving the opposing defenses something to worry about.”
“So just think you’re playing one-on-one, but you have to finish off of two,” Hanlen instructs next. He has ‘Rese work on step-backs, spin-outs, and other ways to bump a defender off (with his new muscles!) to buy more room. “But just everything is gonna be off of two feet,” Hanlen says.
Hanlen incentivizes one of his Pure Sweat assistants to play better defense suggesting that if Maxey gets blocked on the two-foot jump drill, Maxey will owe the guy $1,000. How’s that for high stakes practice sessions? Or maybe after signing a $200M+ contract extension last July, it’s just pocket change for the Texas native.
Towards the end, Maxey is working on pull-up jumpers off the dribble from deep, and yes, despite the new, more powerful physique, he’s still wet.
And no, this is not your grandpappy’s Ben Simmons offseason workout videos.