The NBA trade deadline is one week away.

Will the Sixers move Ben Simmons? Will he stay? Will he play Call of Duty or PUBG tonight? Not sure about those first two, but the third is a definite “yes.”

The one thing that’s not definite is Tyrese Maxey’s status. Would you make him available in a trade, or is he untouchable? An early sampling from my Twitter poll seems to suggest that Sixers fans really do not want to move him:

“Untouchable” is an interesting word, right? It always depends on how each person defines the word. In a vacuum, I would say that there are very few untouchable NBA players. Joel Embiid is one of them. Steph Curry is another. So if the Sixers found themselves in a situation where one of the elite superstars was available, then no way are you saying, “sorry, we really like Ja Morant, we just can’t get rid of Tyrese right now.”

But you have other scenarios, like this one:

I’ll play along with Eliot. I’ll take the bait. Let’s say the deal is Ben Simmons and Tyrese Maxey for Bradley Beal, straight up. Would you do it? The money matches because Tyrese is on his rookie deal,* though I get the feeling that most Sixers fans would now be against this trade. They would probably have supported this trade 100% in the summer, pre-Maxey breakout.

There’s no doubt that a lineup of Joel Embiid, Bradley Beal, Tobias Harris, Seth Curry, and Danny Green would be really damn good. Same thing if you did a Damian Lillard trade. You’d be moving two ball handlers though (one of whom isn’t playing) and would be reliant on Shake Milton backup PG minutes or have to find another option there.

I think the theme from Sixers fans is that Maxey is definitely not a “sweetener.” It would be a shame to lose him in that way. If you wanted to do Simmons and Matisse Thybulle for Beal, okay, but Tyrese Maxey as a “throw in” would be a pretty tough sell.

If anything, Maxey’s emergence gives the Sixers more options here. We were conditioned to think that the Sixers absolutely needed to bring back a ball handler for Ben Simmons, because there were so few options behind him. Maxey, we thought, might be running point for the second unit this season. But with Tyrese playing so well, the Sixers can flip Simmons for a wing and roll out a starting five that looks like this:

  1. Maxey
  2. Curry
  3. (wing you just traded for)
  4. Harris
  5. Embiid

That’s a scenario we didn’t predict in the summer. We didn’t know enough about Maxey to think he could run the first team and you could upgrade Danny Green’s position instead. And at the same time, this addresses the Sixers’ biggest position of need, which is a perimeter creator. Somebody who can get a bucket and create their own shot. That doesn’t have to be a point guard. It can be a two or a three. It no longer has to be a like-for-like swap.

To answer the question, no, Tyrese Maxey is not untouchable. Most players are not untouchable. I think sometimes we as Philly sports fans can be prisoners of the moment and tend to overvalue the young guy who is playing well. Sometimes we go a bit overboard in that department. But we are also way beyond the point of turning Maxey into a sweetener. He is not Landry Shamet. He’s not a guy you just toss in there to complete a deal. Daryl Morey knows this, and so does Doc Rivers. If Maxey is included in a Simmons deal, the return has to really be worth it.

*we’re just doing hypotheticals here for the sake of discussion, but I’ll point out for context that Beal is has a player option next season, so if you were gonna do anything with him you’d have to take that into consideration. either extend him or whatever – he can make the most money re-signing with Washington, and then that throws the salary match awry