Playoff Leadership: Tyrese Maxey
“Traditional” leaders make you want to follow them through excellence or gravitas. Others evoke different emotions: joy, wonder, excitement. Whatever they've got, you want some.
Tyrese Maxey of the Philadelphia 76ers is a poster child for this joyful model of leadership. His smile is as genuine as it is infectious. His energy is contagious, and he’s a blur on the court. He plays free. And like a walking inspirational quote, his freedom gives his teammates permission to play the same unrestrained, joyful game.
And coming off a blowout loss in Game 1 of their first round series against the heavily-favored Boston Celtics, Maxey and his backcourt partner VJ Edgecombe tapped into that joy to combine for 59 points in a Game 2 win.
As of this writing, Maxey and the Sixers are down 3-1 in a best-of-7 series against those Celtics. It’s not their year. But Tyrese Maxey has continually made the most of opportunities he wasn’t sure to get.
He fell to the 21st pick in the 2020 draft, taken by a good Sixers team that already had an point guard in Ben Simmons, making Maxey an uncertain fit. Then Simmons imploded, and Maxey stepped in. Then, the Sixers added James Harden (another All-Star ball-dominant guard) and Maxey adjusted. Then Harden left and Maxey expanded anew. This year, his co-star center Joel Embiid has been out most of the year, and Maxey has become the whole offensive engine.
Every time a door has opened — even a crack — he’s walked through it and made the room bigger.
And he’s done it while playing with a joy that makes you want to watch basketball even when you don't care who wins.
The comparison: Lin-Manuel Miranda.
In The Heights was the proof of concept — a scrappy, joyful debut that announced something different was possible. Then Hamilton arrived and expanded what the form could be. Miranda brought hip-hop into a space that never looked for it, told a story nobody was asking to hear again, and made it impossible to look away. And all of it stemmed from infectious creative energy that made everyone in the system rise to the occasion.
“I am not throwing away my shot” bridged a lyric into a philosophy for Miranda in his ventures from Broadway to Disney and beyond. And it's the same philosophy Maxey plays with every night: this opening exists, I earned the right to be here, and I'm going to make the room bigger.
The archetype: the Joyful Ascender. Fuel is genuine love for the work, visible and contagious. People follow not because they have to, but because the energy is irresistible.
The trade-off: leading with joy may get underestimated by people who equate seriousness with severity. Enthusiasm can come across as naivete.
Then again, if this is your style: don't let anyone tell you the joy is unprofessional. It can be your edge.
