Who could be the Sixers’ next Mike Muscala?

Mike Muscala became a Sixers legend for sinking the shot that landed the team Tyrese Maxey. Who is the 2025 version if the draft goes well?

It may not feel like it right now, but it took a lot of effort for the Sixers to be bad enough to retain their top-six protected pick in this year’s draft.

With a third of the league tanking, a 9-3 stretch made it nearly impossible for Philadelphia to not secure a top-10 seed in a struggling Eastern Conference. It took everything going wrong, and going 5-29 over the last 34 games of the season to ensure the best possible lottery odds to remain in the top six.

It got us at Liberty Ballers thinking. If the draft goes well for the Sixers (a big if, we admit) and they come away with an impact player, who will the be the new Mike Muscala in franchise lore?

For anyone who might not remember, former Sixer Mike Muscala made his greatest contributions for the team as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Back in 2020 in the bubble, Muscala ended the regular season with this buzzer-beater to beat the Miami Heat. That shot and win improved the Thunder to the 21st pick in that year’s draft, removing the top-20 protection and sending the pick to Philadelphia. The Sixers would go on to take Tyrese Maxey with that pick.

So if the Sixers come away with another player that breathes new life into the franchise, who is the new Muscala that played their part in delivering a crucial loss for the 2024-25 Sixers? We narrowed down our top five candidates.

Nikola Jokic

This isn’t the only superstar on this list, and because so, they are going to rank at the bottom. The spirit of the Mike Muscala play is idealized with a role player. The lore is a lot more fascinating that some random seventh guy off the bench helped save the franchise, let alone the fact that he played for the Sixers at one point.

The winner of three of the last five MVPs certainly doesn’t fit the bill. The type of loss he handed the Sixers back in January certainly does. Without Joel Embiid or Paul George in the lineup, Philly was remarkably hanging with Denver in a shootout.

Stringing together some better offensive play, this looked like the Sixers could finally be turning the corner on this wretched start if they could just survive until their stars made it back. It looked like they were going to do so with a late lead over the Nuggets on national television. Jokic was able to snatch the victory just in time after Maxey got switched on to him, putting in this and-1 to put the Nuggets in front for good.

Shoutout to X user @mhc_76 for the clip. He put together a similar list of special losses before the team fully committed to the tanking efforts.

Jayson Tatum

Just days after coming up short against the Nuggets, the Sixers had another opportunity to steal a win against a marquee opponent on national television. It looked like they were going to do more than steal it as they held a 26-point lead with under three minutes left in the third quarter against the Boston Celtics. Then an onslaught happened.

Boston went on such a dominant run that not only erased the lead, but they put themselves in front less than halfway through the fourth quarter. The run was fueled by Tatum, who finished the game with 35 points and 11 assists. More importantly, this was another demoralizing loss that saw the Sixers come up short despite putting together better efforts on a consistent basis.

Anthony Edwards

Again, this is someone who’s getting knocked a bit for the star factor, but the heroics were certainly there. In a desperate battle to stay worse than the Brooklyn Nets, the depleted Sixers found themselves in good shape as they trailed the Minnesota Timberwolves all night back in April.

Then Quentin Grimes, who was struggling for most of the night, came alive. He scored 17 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter as the Sixers stormed back to erase a 13-point lead. This dagger from Edwards with seven seconds remaining and two defenders draped all over him prevented a comeback the Sixers desperately couldn’t afford.

Alperen Sengun

We still aren’t meeting all the criteria here with a one-time All-Star, but we’re getting closer. In March, the Sixers were well intrenched with their efforts to lose every game possible. Still, they found themselves in a dogfight with the playoff-bound Houston Rockets.

Philly had led for most of this one but were never able to put the Rockets away. Despite the Sixers having a depleted big rotation, Sengun struggled for much of the game and found himself on the bench for nearly the entire fourth quarter. He came in just when the Rockets needed a rebound though, and was able to grab a missed free throw and put it back to force overtime. He went on to dominate the extra period, scoring 7 of his 13 points in the last 5:05 of this game.

Nic Claxton

As improbable as some of those other losses were, this will be the moment to look back on if the Sixers nail this draft pick. Securing one of the six worst records in the league was important for the pick’s protection, sliding down to five or worse was even better, as it finally gave the Sixers a chance greater than 50% to keep the pick.

The Brooklyn Nets were the team jockeying for this position. In the end, they finished two games ahead of the Sixers and this game was a big reason why. This game was the tipping point. Philly was still clinging on to some hope they could turn things around, but this game forced their hand.

With all three of George, Maxey and Embiid on the court, they still found themselves trailing by double digits all night to a team trying to lose. They only started to chip away at that lead once Embiid was benched in the fourth quarter. It looked like the Sixers just may have finally been getting their shit together. They capped off the comeback with a three from Maxey to tie the game with 22 seconds remaining and get the arena on their feet.

Those hopes were dashed as quickly as they rose. Keon Johnson missed the go-ahead three-point attempt, but George missed his box-out on Nic Claxton, who scooped up the rebound and put it back just before the buzzer expired. The shot deflated the Sixers’ hopes and season. Embiid would not play another game that season. The Sixers would go 4-22 the rest of the way as they finally committed to retaining their draft pick.

So if this franchise is bailed out by another unexpected draft pick, they once again have another center’s buzzer beater to thank.