For the duration of Tyrese Maxey’s NBA career, Dean Wade was on the Cleveland Cavaliers, which meant Maxey and Wade shared the floor plenty over the last six years.
But one quality of Wade didn’t stand out for Maxey until they got on the practice floor together.
“I didn’t know he was this tall,” Maxey said. “You play against a guy two or three times a year, but you don’t really realize until you’re seeing somebody every day — he’s tall. He’s really tall.”
Wade, listed at 6-foot-9, will be utilizing that height off the bench to bolster the Sixers defense. His arrival from Cleveland was a part of the team’s plans before the Sixers traded for Jaylen Brown and landed LeBron James. Now that both Brown and James are here, Wade figures to be an ideal bench piece to complement this group. He’s a low-usage shooter, but someone who can knock down open threes (36.7% for his career), and he is a defensive standout who can take on a team’s best player, thanks in part to that height.
“That’s what’s going to separate us on the defensive end, too, we have so many great defenders, great help side defenders and great on-ball defenders,” Wade said.
Wade came to the Sixers thanks in part to his relationship in Cleveland with president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, who previously served as the Cavaliers general manager. Gansey and Wade bonded early over their shared rivalries from the Big 12 (Gansey went to West Virginia, Wade Kansas State) and the undrafted Wade steadily carved out a role for himself with the Cavaliers with his commitment to defense.
He credited two coaches of his there, Josh Broghamer and Chris Darnell, with instilling the value of defense in him — not just how defense could affect a team, but how he could help him find a role in the NBA. So he got in the weight room and kept developing his lateral quickness so he could stay in front of his man.
“They were like, ‘The one thing that’s going to keep you on the floor is defense,’” Wade said. “‘You’re big. You move lateral, you’re quick enough that you can stay in front of people.’ And I think they’re like, ‘If you want to play, you want to stick in the NBA, you got to do that. You know, every team has scores, people that can create. You got to be different.’”
Wade, who averaged 5.8 points last season, said one of his goals this season on offense was to make sure he gave his teammates space to create and do their thing. He wouldn’t be hunting for his own shot. Maxey said he was going to encourage Wade to shoot more.
“He’s also somebody who knows how to play a role, and he knows how to star in his role, too. He doesn’t deviate,” Maxey said. “[I’ll] be on him this year about shooting the ball. I want him to shoot a lot of threes. He can shoot the ball.”
When told what Maxey said, Wade flashed a smile, as if he has heard 1,000 times in his career that he has the green light to shoot the ball more.
“They pay me to shoot the ball when I’m open and play defense, so I have to do that,” Wade said. “Coach [Nick Nurse] has been on me a few times already, so it’s something that I’ve been told before. It’s not like I hate it; it’s better to shoot than stop shooting, but it will come along when you get into the flow of games and getting repetition, and time with each other.”
Among his initial impressions so far at camp, Wade said both Jaylen Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope think the game similarly to him, and he has also been impressed with the maturity of VJ Edgecombe, even though the second-year guard is only 21 years old.
“I love the way he plays. I really do,” Wade said. “So anytime I get out there on his team, like I love it because man, he’s flying around in transition, making the right cuts. He’s sacrificing shots for people, and … he plays the right way.”
Which sounds a lot like the way Wade plays.
“I’ve been in the gym quite a bit with everyone,” Wade said. “The biggest thing coming in is being yourself. Especially, in training camp, just come out, be who you’re going to be all season and let everyone learn what you do.”
