Offense:
Maxey is a good scorer from all areas on the court (At the rim, mid-range, Free Throw line & 3). His finishing package at the rim is one of the more enticing skills in the draft utilizing an array of moves, great touch, and under the radar athletic traits to finish at an extremely high clip. In short, he’s very good and projectable here. In the mid-range, he uses his quick decision making and great body control to get to his spots decisively and elevate balanced and quickly. His release is low, though his aforementioned space creation ability alleviates much of the concern. He should be able to develop solid volume here, though we’ll get to that in-depth later when we break down his handle. Saying he is a good 3pt shooter (right now) is somewhat controversial, though I think he is very projectable. Maxey shoots well off pull-ups yet struggles off the catch. Being already good at the harder and his more practiced shot (along with other shooting indicators) makes it easier to project probably rapid growth in his off the catch shooting game as he devotes time to it. Further, the crux of Maxey struggles shooting off the catch seem to be largely based on shot prep/footwork leading into the shot where he doesn’t always square up or hop into his shots creating unnecessary rotation or clunky out of sync mechanics. This wasn’t always the case, and Maxey did noticeably better when it wasn’t. Technical problems like this aren’t of much concern as they can be corrected fairly easily with NBA level coaching as long as the player at hand has a good work ethic. Maxey has a reputation as a very hard worker. In all, I’d say Maxey will be a very capable shooter and scorer. In terms of drawing fouls he did a solid, but unspectacular, job at Kentucky (3.9 FTA @ 83%). His physical style, ability to finish at the rim, and quick & violent hand movements are all good reasons to project further growth in the NBA when/if optimized properly. Further, Maxey is very nice in transition. His athletic traits, handle in space, quick decision making and fishing package all play out very nicely. So what we have is the backbone of a solid play finisher who mostly operates and excels out of situations where advantages are created for him in some manner (dho, pin downs, PnR). Which brings us to Maxey's swing skill, his handle. it is what will determine the volume he’ll be able to create for himself and others. Currently, he’s pretty limited, though showed more ability in hs (where he played more on the ball) and also showed good ball control in space at the NCAA level. However, in the HC he was not really able to get to where he wanted to consistently or operate as a heads up decision making when moving through traffic. Where we find optimism is in his mental processing ability and nice toolset. Maxey is a good and quick decision-maker, he reacts well to the ever-changing stimulus in front of him & usually reacts beneficially. Maxey also has solid all-around movement ability and strength to further accentuate reason to buy future rim running projection. His biggest issue is the physical side of things, ball control, and deception, where he doesn’t have the best starting baseline for an initiator. The good news is the physical side is easier to improve and more projectable as it is mostly dependent on devotion to skill work. Again work ethic comes in big here. This is crucial because as it stands now Maxey isn’t a special passer by any means, more so a good decision maker and opportunistic ball mover. Being able to consistently beat his man is the reason to believe Maxey can produce good shot volume for himself and his teammates, where his good decision making will beat out rotating defenses. I’d be pretty comfortable betting incremental improvement from Maxey in terms of functional handle gains in the NBA. If I had to guess id say he can become a second initiator type somewhere, possibly early, in his second contract. If not we're still talking about a solid floor offensive play finisher, with very nice off-ball movement, some PnR & transition ability plus good decision making.
