Dean Wade was signed to a four-year, $39MM deal and Anfernee Simons was added on a two-year, $12.3MM contract in July. Thus far, those free agent signings look like shrewd moves by Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, Adam Aaronson of PhillyVoice.com writes.

Wade is averaging 26.3 minutes per game and has been a defensive force, including 1.9 steals per contest.

“He’s in the position where some nights he’ll start, some nights he won’t start, some nights he’ll play five, some nights he’ll guard Jalen Brunson, he’ll guard [Karl-Anthony Towns]. He’s – I love Dean Wade,” Tyrese Maxey said.

Simons has struggled in his last two outings but averaged 20 points in his three previous games.

“He’s got it,” coach Nick Nurse said. “He’s a speed shooter. You can run him off a bunch of stuff and he doesn’t need a lot of space. And that opens up a lot of other avenues offensively once you kind of get used to him.”

Here’s more on the red-hot Sixers:

• They face the Cavaliers on Friday. LeBron James spurned Cleveland to sign with Philadelphia and Wade expects a raucous crowd tonight, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin tweets. “In my seven years here, anytime that LeBron came back it was just a madhouse. It was crazy. The fans were awesome. So I expect that is what tonight’s going to be like,” he said.
• Could Maxey contend for the Most Valuable Player award? The Athletic’s Tony Jones tackles that question, relaying that Maxey sought improvements to his game through rugged preparation this offseason. “It was a long offseason for me,” Maxey said. “I worked on a lot. I wanted to work on a lot. I worked on my passing. I worked on my isolation scoring and my late-game scoring. I wanted to be able to come back with a move that I could get to late in games, because I knew we were going to need it. I knew we would need it, and I knew that I would be ready to do it.” So far, it’s paying off, with Maxey averaging 28 points on 48.6 percent shooting and 5.4 assists.
• It’s easy to see the Sixers making a deep playoff run, considering their 8-1 start. James is trying to pump the brakes on what might happen this spring, ESPN’s Kris Rihm writes. “It’s too early to be talking about the Finals and things of that nature on Nov. 4,” James said after Philadelphia’s road win in Detroit on Wednesday. “So we’ll continue just to buy into what we want to do. … We got a good team. Guys vibe with one another, guys like each other, guys enjoy being around each other.”
• They’ve built their record by being elite in clutch moments, The Athletic’s Zach Harper notes. They’re 7-0 in “clutch games,” in which the teams have been within five points of each other in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. The Sixers haven’t had any one-possession wins, but five of their eight victories have come by six points or less. However, Harper also points out that teams that win the title or even compete for it don’t have a lot of clutch games during the regular season.