The Sixers big four is gonna have a real playmaking issue once everyone has to scale down this year. Jaylen Brown has basically never been good at this. Across his career he’s sat below the trend line in passing creation relative to how much he had the ball. Last year he put up 28.7 points and a career-high 5.1 assists while leading the league in usage (around 36%). That’s a ton of on-ball reps, and the assist numbers still weren’t impressive once you account for the workload. He’s a scorer. He plays with blinders sometimes, doesn’t see the floor the best, and even when the raw assist totals go up it’s still not impressive relative to opportunity. That’s just not his game. Maxey’s improved. Early in his career he was clearly below average here, and now he’s right around the line (maybe slightly above depending on the year). He averaged 28.3 points and 6.6 assists on roughly 30% usage last season. He’s become a decent enough creator, but he’s still not a high-end playmaker. He misses some easy reads and can get tunnel vision when he’s attacking. Embiid’s never been a plus passer relative to his opportunity either. He was at 26.9 points, 3.9 assists, and about 34% usage in the games he played. That’s fine for a big, most of them are finishers more than creators — but it still matters when you’re building an offense around four guys who all want the ball. Then there’s LeBron, who’s been elite at this his whole career. He’s always been well above the line. Last year he still put up 7.2 assists on a lower usage (around 27%) while scoring 20.9. Problem is he’s 42. He’s not going to be the primary ball-handler on this team. His role shrinks, so even though he’s still a great extra passer, you’re not getting prime “run the offense” LeBron volume out of him. So when you take four high-usage guys and shrink everybody’s role so they can share the ball, you’re not really left with a ton of plus passing. The offense can still be solid because of the talent and shot creation, but I don’t think it scales into a top-5 or top-6 unit. And if it ends up more like 9th or 10th, that becomes a problem, because the defense with LeBron and Embiid as your 4 and 5 at this stage of their careers isn’t going to be special either. Dean Wade can only guard one guy. That’s the concern. Not that the offense will be bad, but that the passing won’t hold up the way people are assuming once the roles get redistributed. Also part of why I don’t think the Sixers make a top 5 seed in the east. Graphic via: TaylorMet on TT