Maxey, PG on Sixers' woes: Only way to go is up

PHILADELPHIA -- After one of the most disappointing seasons in NBA history, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey said they believe the Philadelphia 76ers can still achieve the championship dreams the franchise fell so far short of achieving this season.

"I do think so," George said before the 76ers concluded their dismal 2024-25 campaign at Wells Fargo Center with a 122-102 loss to the Chicago Bulls. "I think with the personnel we have, I think with finding young talent [to help us]. ... I think we can be a team in the future that can compete for a championship."

"The one positive that I do take away," said Maxey, "is the only way we can go from here is up."

It has been a season to forget for the 76ers, who entered Sunday's season finale with 24 wins -- tied with the 1994-95 edition of the franchise for seventh fewest in its 76-year history.

They got here by going an abysmal 5-31 over their past 36 games -- a two-and-a-half-month stretch that has potentially allowed Philadelphia to pull off what once was unthinkable: keeping its top-six-protected first-round pick.

That possibility, however, hasn't made the past few months any easier to swallow for the 76ers. George hasn't played since March 4, and was officially ruled out for the season on March 17 following injections in both his left adductor muscle and left knee.

George, who turns 35 next month and signed a four-year, $212 million max contract with the 76ers last summer -- a signing that was supposed to launch Philadelphia into true title contention -- was one of many disappointments for Philadelphia this season.

He played in 41 games -- down from 74 last season -- and his average of 16.2 points per game was his lowest in a decade by more than five points. It also was more than six points fewer than he averaged in each of the past two seasons with the LA Clippers, when he earned All-Star appearances.

"Yeah, it was just, to be honest, one of the toughest seasons for me," said George, a nine-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA selection. "Just with a lot of adversity on the court, off the court and, then again, the injury stuff was some stuff that I didn't necessarily know I had going on ... which was frustrating."

Maxey, who burst into stardom last season when he averaged 25.9 points per game, made his first All-Star appearance and won the NBA's Most Improved Player award, also took a step back this season. While his scoring saw a bump (26.3 PPG), he shot a career-low 43.7% from the field, including a 33.7% mark from 3-point range, easily his lowest average since his rookie season.

The precocious 24-year-old, who was officially ruled out for the season Wednesday with a sprained right finger, said it will take a collective effort to recover from this season and be back in the mix next year.

"The names on the paper ... it looks nice. It does," Maxey said. "And I think we've seen where our peaks can be this year. There wasn't a lot of them. But there was some stretches where we all played and we looked really good. We found the right rotations, we knew who to get the ball to, who we need to get the ball to them, everybody got shots, everybody looked good.

"So the sky's the limit. That's the thing that I can say. But the work has to be put in from day one, not from in the middle of the season. ... Today is our last game. Whenever everybody decides to start working out again, that's when our season for next year starts, individually and collectively. And it has to be taken serious. And I think we will take it serious and I have the ultimate faith in the organization and the guys up top and my teammates to do that."

The Sixers' potential to jump back up the standings next season could also depend on whether Cooper Flagg or some other top draft prospect winds up in Philadelphia if the 76ers hang on to that protected pick. Some of it will also come down to the health of the team's other star, Joel Embiid, who was the one player who wasn't scheduled to speak Sunday after the team announced that he underwent arthroscopic surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York on Friday for his troublesome left knee.

That knee limited Embiid to just 19 games; the three stars played in just 15 games (for a total of 294 minutes) together this season.

"It sucked," Maxey said of watching Embiid struggle with his health this season. "It really did suck, man, because at the end of the day, Joe is somebody who really wants to be out there. So to see him suffer, to see him go out there and actually try and he just couldn't be himself ... you could tell. You'd give him the ball sometimes, and me being here the longest, I've seen him do so many spectacular things and I gave him the ball a couple of times in moments where I think that he'll do something and I guess he just couldn't, he was limited.

"So hopefully that surgery went well and all that and he gets back to the Joel Embiid that we know and love. And, honestly, I hope it does for him, because it'll make him feel a lot better."

Whatever happens moving forward, Sunday finally closed a miserable season in which the Sixers never found a way to bring everything together as expected.

"I think we were just in a scramble all year, to be honest," George said. "I think we were just in a scramble. One player comes in, one player goes out, and it kind of was just that cycle all season long, and I give Coach [Nick] Nurse a ton of credit for just kind of picking up pieces, literally, and trying to figure this thing out as we were going throughout the year.

"But I think again, it was just no consistency in terms of lineups, personnel and who was just on the floor in general. So again, I think past the injuries part of it, you kind of just can say it was just no consistency with just the guys being on the floor together."