PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia 76ers star Tyrese Maxey is reportedly going to partake in the 3-point contest at the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend. As he prepares to play in the main event of the weekend for the first time in his career, Maxey is also going to show off his shooting abilities and compete for some more hardware.

The NBA has not yet officially announced the participants for the All-Star competitions but Maxey indicated that he is gearing up for it. The first-time All-Star said that he practiced shooting threes off of the rack and that it's something he'll have to do some more before the competition in 11 days.

“It felt a little funny,” Tyrese Maxey admitted. “I've never done that before. So, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

Maxey's game has developed in many ways since being drafted 21st overall in the 2020 NBA Draft by the 76ers. Now one of the best long-range shooters in the game and a star who can go off for explosive scoring performances any given game, shooting was an area that seeped skepticism into Maxey’s stock, allowing him to fall to a win-now team in the draft.

“It’s funny that I get announced for that, and I think about the past, the reason I’m here in Philadelphia going 21 is because people said I couldn’t shoot,” Maxey said. “So I’m actually glad that I ended up here. It's been great, man. I mean, anything All-Star Weekend that I can participate in, I think I'll have a lot of fun while doing it.”

In his lone season at Kentucky, Tyrese Maxey shot just 29.2 percent from beyond the arc. The ceiling of a small, slender guard can be limited if he isn’t a threat from beyond the arc. Even though Maxey routinely shot in the mid-to-high 30s for several years in high school and shot above 80 percent from the foul line both in college and high school, many talent evaluators didn’t buy him as a prolific shooter. It's an old take that the Sixers star has exposed repeatedly over his NBA career.

After shooting just 30.1 percent from deep in his rookie year, Maxey made over 42 percent of his triples over the previous two seasons with a less ball-dominant role. Even with his percentage slipping as he finds himself taking more difficult looks this season, he's still got what it takes to go shot for shot with just about anyone.

In the 2023-24 campaign, Tyrese Maxey is shooting 38.0 percent from deep while making 3.1 triples per game. Only 10 other players average a hat trick of three-pointers per game on 38.0 percent shooting. Among that group, he ranks third in points per game behind only Stephen Curry and Trae Young.

Fellow All-Stars Haliburton, Jalen Brunson and Damian Lillard are among the other names reportedly committed to the 3-point contest. Maxey will be the 76ers' first player to participate in the competition since 2004-05 Kyle Korver and the first to participate in the same year of an All-Star selection since Allen Iverson at the turn of the century.