The biggest and flashiest move of free agency thus far has come from the City of Brotherly Love, where Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia 76ers swooped in and stole Paul George away from the Los Angeles Clippers without the slightest bit of tampering. With the addition of the nine-time NBA All-Star, Philadelphia is now home to what many around the league consider to be one of the league's best Big Three's in George, the 2022-23 MVP Joel Embiid, and the 2023-24 Most Improved Player of the Year Tyrese Maxey.
Where exactly Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George rank among the rest of the league's most dynamic trios is up for debate — I'll be weighing in on this in just a moment — but one NBA insider doesn't even feel the need to go through the process of working out how the 76ers trio stacks up against the rest of the league. During a Monday morning appearance on Get Up, ESPN's Tim Bontemps made the claim that Philadelphia's Big Three is the best in the league, and that there's not even much competition for the top spot.
“The Sixers now have the best big three in the NBA and it’s really not close,” Bontemps said without the slightest bit of hesitation. “With the three guys they have now, all of them were All-Stars last year, they got a lead guard in Maxey, they’ve got an elite two-way wing in Paul George. You’ve got maybe the most dominant big in the league in Joel Embiid. They fit together perfectly. They compliment each other in every way on the court, they’re versatile, Paul George’s an elite shooter, you have two elite shooters now giving spacing around Embiid.”
Bontemps is right. On paper, this trio is about as nice a fit as you can imagine. Everything will still run through Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey will still likely get his 20 shots per game. Paul George is a chameleon who can defend multiple positions, space the floor around Embiid, and score in a multitude of ways. There's no positional or stylistic overlap that head coach Nick Nurse needs to worry about. Each of his three stars will be able to be uniquely themselves on the basketball court, something that George couldn't really do playing alongside Kawhi Leonard and James Harden in Los Angeles.
Where does the 76ers Big Three rank among the NBA's best?
There's no concrete definition of what actually constitutes as a Big Three. Look back to newspaper headlines of the nineties and you'll find that Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were referred to as a Big Three for the Chicago Bulls, even though nowadays, revisionist history likes to tell us that MJ did it all on his own.
The first instance I personally remember seeing ‘Big Three' mentioned during an NBA broadcast was in the midst of the Milwaukee Bucks' 2001 run to the Eastern Conference Finals, when NBC used a ‘Big Three' graphic to describe Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson, and Sam Cassell, though that trio has been lost in history because they didn't come away with an NBA Title. Similarly, Steve Nash, Amar'e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion developed into another title-less Big Three in Phoenix in the mid-00's.
In 2007, the Boston Celtics popularized the term when they added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to their roster with Paul Pierce. In 2010, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh formed arguably the NBA's most famous (and despised) Big Three in South Beach, and organically at the same time, the Golden State Warriors were building their own big three through the NBA Draft, selecting Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in the span of four years. The Cleveland Cavaliers Big Three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love managed to topple Golden State's trio in the 2016 NBA Finals, forcing Golden State to go out and get Kevin Durant, giving the Dubs a “Big Four” if there is such a thing.
But here's the thing that makes this exercise difficult: each of those Big Three's came together in much different ways, and each one had a different function on the basketball court. Dennis Rodman was the 7th-leading scorer on the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, but nobody mistakes Ron Harper or Luc Longley as the third member of Chicago's Big Three. Sam Cassell never made an All-Star team, but what undoubtedly just as important to Milwaukee's success as Ray Allen or Glenn Robinson were. Draymond Green was a 2nd round pick who only got his opportunity to start because David Lee was injured ahead of the 2014-15 season.
So, is a Big Three just a title contender's best three players? Is it one star player and his two best side kicks? Is it three guys whose skill level and importance to their team are pretty close to equal?
Can I say that the answer is ‘Yes' to all of the questions above?
After careful consideration, I think we can start here… a Big Three should consist of three players who you could envision making an All-Star team in a given season, three players who have perennially been All-Stars in the recent past, or three players who have proven to be vital to winning at the highest level. With that being the case, I think we can eliminate the pseudo Big Three's that exist in Los Angeles (Austin Reaves doesn't quite get ya there), Miami (same goes for Tyler Herro), Golden State (with Klay Thompson, this could've worked, but Jonathan Kuminga isn't quite there yet), Sacramento (Is Malik Monk or Keegan Murray the third guy?), and Indiana (my toughest cut, if only because I can't quite envision Myles Turner making an All-Star team).
The next thing that needs to be considered is what happens if a team is so deep that there isn't a traditional trio that leads the way? Surely, we could call Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday a Big Three, right? Well couldn't we do the same for Tatum, Brown and Kristaps Porzingis? Or Derrick White? So using that logic, I think we need to cut Boston and New York, if only because it doesn't feel like there is a trio that is firmly atop the roster.
Since that's the case, that leaves seven teams that have a Big Three leading the way:
Philadelphia 76ers – Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Paul George
Phoenix Suns – Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal
Minnesota Timberwolves – Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert
Dallas Mavericks – Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson
Denver Nuggets – Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon
Oklahoma City Thunder – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams
Milwaukee Bucks – Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton
Whether it's a quick look or a prolonged stare, Tim Bontemps has a point… Philadelphia does have the best Big Three in the NBA. And while history has taught us that a solid Big Three doesn't always lead to an NBA Title, it's fair to say that the Philadelphia 76ers' championship window is more open now than it has been at any other point in time in the Joel Embiid era.
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