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You might say Tyrese Maxey has already laid the early foundation for a pretty convincing All-Star case. He's averaging over 24 points a game with a .633 true-shooting percentage, a product of his 47 percent 3-point clip on seven attempts per game. 

But there are only 12 Eastern Conference spots available, and allotting 25 percent of them to one team in the 76ers, who likely won't be dominant enough through the first half of the season to warrant such disproportionate All-Star representation, was always going to be a tough sell. Joe Embiid, assuming health, is a lock. 

In all likelihood, James Harden, who has put up big numbers to start the season in his own right, and Maxey will be in competition for the second Sixers nod, and with Harden now expected to miss the next month with a tendon strain in his right foot, Maxey's All-Star campaign has officially begun. 

What Maxey does over this next month to not only keep Philly afloat in Harden's absence, but perhaps give them a more energized look in possibly propelling them to a better place, will go a long way in determining whether Maxey, who is one of the league's most electric players, will make his first All-Star team in just his third NBA season. 

You can expect a scoring surge from Maxey, who at this point is probably a better individual scorer than Harden. He's much faster downhill and in transition. He's a far better shooter. But it's Harden, who assists on 44 percent of Houston's buckets when he's on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass, who continues to butter Philly's bread as a playmaker. 

Maxey doesn't do nearly as much to set up teammates; his assists generate under 10 points per game for the Sixers, while Harden turns his 10 dimes per game into almost 27 points a night for Philly, per NBA.com. Some of that is a function of Maxey's secondary half-court role, to be sure. Harden possesses the ball for almost nine seconds of every Philadelphia possession. He orchestrates so Maxey can catch and shoot or attack the paint quickly once defenses are in rotation. 

Tyrese Maxey
PHI • PG
PPG24.2
APG3.4
SPG1
3P/G3.222
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But the thing is, Maxey is arguably the one better suited to put defenses in rotation in the first place. He's not going to probe the paint and fire skip passes with the same precision, but he's nearly impossible to defend at the point of attack. While Tobias Harris and PJ Tucker space the floor for Harden, they become, arguably, more dangerous as secondary creators against closeouts when defenders are having to leave them to cut off Maxey's penetration. 

Make of it what you will in such a small sample, but so far, the Sixers are sporting a 119.3 offensive rating when Maxey leads the offense without Harden, which would rank No. 1 in the league. Flip that around and put Harden on the court without Maxey, and Philly's offensive rating falls nearly 10 points per 100 possessions to 109.8, which would rank 24 league-wide, per Cleaning The Glass. 

To Harden's credit, he doesn't monopolize the offense quite to the degree he used to. He cedes to Maxey when he has it going, and they coexist well. Maxey's career-high 44-point performance against Toronto came with Embiid in the lineup, and, man, did the Sixers share the ball well in the first half of that game. It was zipping, everyone making quick decisions, and Maxey, who controls the ball for fewer than four seconds each time he touches it and almost two seconds fewer than Harden's 5.75-second touch-time, should be able to ignite more of that tempo as the lead pilot. 

It's not to suggest the Sixers won't miss Harden. They obviously will. To get where they want to go, the Sixers need both Harden and Maxey. But for the next month, they need Maxey more than ever. It's his time, and if he shine, it will go a long way toward his earning a first-time All-Star nod.