With so many players needing the ball, Philadelphia could have a rough start to the season.
When the Philadelphia 76ers constructed their 2027 roster, none of them anticipated the idea of a “super-user” stat. A super-user is a player who has a career usage rate of over 25%.
The 76ers have four of them, and it’s led to so many problematic comments. People are wondering how they can make this work, while others are thinking it has no chance and the season is going to be a wash.
Knowing that this team has so many options, it’s only one real answer to the question posed by ESPN; don’t worry about it.
When one begins to worry about an empty stat like usage rate, then you’ve already sacrificed the season because many are worried about numbers and not about winning. If there has to be a real solution, it’s just going to come down to ball movement. Not keeping the ball in one person’s hand. When you do that, you play into the defense's hand and allow them to set up and control where the ball goes.
Let’s keep things in perspective: none of these players truly care about their numbers; they just want to have everyone involved and keep the morale high. Maxey has spoken about this exact thing when he made the claim that he wants VJ Edgecombe to be involved in the offense. It’s about the entire team, not just one person.
Numbers are misleading; that’s part of the reason people are overreacting about the usage rate. Usage rate doesn’t tell the entire story; it only depicts how one player does when he has the ball in his hands. It doesn’t detail what or who the defense is catering to. It’s times where Maxey was free to do as he pleased because Embiid was on the floor. His usage rate hardly changed, as he had a usage rate of 28.1% compared to 31.4% with him off the floor.
They fared just fine with him, whether they had Embiid or not. So what problem will they have just because the floor is more spaced out, making it easier for Maxey to score?
Jaylen Brown, Maxey, and Joel Embiid will navigate the issue just fine. The team fared well when they had Paul George, and he required the ball in his hand as well.
The term "super-user" is highly misleading, and the team won’t worry about such miniscule things. It’s all about a championship, and if that means evening out the scoring distribution, then so be it.
