The Philadelphia 76ers asked a lot of Tyrese Maxey to begin the 2023-24 season. He needed to be the replacement for James Harden as the lead initiator of the offense while Harden sought a trade. The 23-year-old Maxey has been leaps and bounds better than advertised for the Sixers, playing a huge part in their 7-1 start to the season.

Maxey has been huge for the Sixers all season but especially in the fourth quarter of their last two games, wins over the Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons. His improvements as a lead guard — the way he hunts contact, makes smart and accurate passes to open teammates and does the little things — are awe-inspiring. They’re also without much historical precedent.

A stat from Mike Lynch of Sports Reference shows just how amazing Maxey has been at not only scoring AND playmaking but also taking care of the ball. No one has started their first eight games of a season with 200 points and 50 assists while committing fewer than 15 turnovers (at least since turnovers were first officially tracked starting in the 1977-78 season).

Of every player to amass 200 points and 50 assists through the first eight games of a season, DeMar DeRozan's 17 turnovers used to be the fewest. Now it's Maxey and his…eight turnovers. Among the other 80 instances of a player reaching 200-50-through-eight-games club, Maxey's span is also just one of eight to include 20 triples and a 39-percent clip from deep.

While eight games is not a huge sample size, Tyrese Maxey's turnovers per game are down (from 1.3 to 1.0) even though his assists and time spent orchestrating the offense have gone up. He's averaging 7.5 assists per game (up from 3.5 last year), playing four more minutes per game than last year and is still posting impressive scoring efficiency with 48.0 percent from the field and 39.3 percent from deep.

“Tyrese's numbers are really outstanding as far as, he keeps finding the assist and he's not having to do it on taking a whole lot of chance-y passes. So, it's great. That's the way to do it, man,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said after Philly's win over the Pistons. 

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers have struggled mightily to incorporate Harden and P.J. Tucker into their lineup. While Maxey did say that Harden had a big, positive impact on him, Philly does not miss its former floor general one bit.