Four players, Tyrese Haliburton, Desmond Bane, LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards, of the 2020 NBA Class have signed maximum contract extensions with their teams since the free agency began on June 30. Tyrese Maxey is fairly the only one left of the class that deserves a similar deal, but the Philadelphia 76ers have not been acting very quickly on it.

Though Maxey played 19 of his 60 games last season off the bench – by contrast, he started 74 of his 75 appearances during the 2021-22 campaign – he averaged 20.3 points and 2.7 triples at 43.4 percent per game. He was the 76ers' No. 3 scorer, No. 2 3-point shooter while playing the third-longest average minutes (33.6) per game.

Considering that James Harden and the team have been searching for a trade for him since he exercised his player option in late June, Maxey is likely to become their first perimeter ball-handler and second scoring option in the 2023-24 season. He still has one year left of his rookie deal and will make only $4.3 million for the coming season.

Maxey is eligible for a max extension of $205.9 million for five years with the 76ers. If the "Derrick Rose rule" is added to his contract and he wins the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award or is selected into any of the three All-NBA Teams in the 2023-24 season, his total salary will climb up to $260 million.

According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, the 76ers see Maxey "as a big part of their future," but won't sign an extension with him because they want to "preserve flexibility."

Since Harden, who will make $35.6 million for the 2023-24 season, is still with the team and it's unclear what kind of assets the 76ers can receive by trading him – as well as with who – the team understandably wants to "preserve flexibility."

However, is that the only thing the 76ers want to preserve? Before we answer that question, let's take a look at what kind of player Maxey is. As a 1.88 meter-tall, 90-kilogram-heavy guard, he relies a lot on transition for a large part of his offensive production. He averaged only 3.6 free throw attempts per game last season, which made a piece of hard proof of his lack of aggressiveness. Meanwhile, judging by his 3.5 assists per game last season, Maxey is not even close to becoming a playmaker. His defense is not as bad as disappointing, but most opponents in the playoffs preferred to attack him instead of 33-year-old Harden, who was never a good defender in a decade.

It's not hard to find other players of Maxey's type: undersized guard who does nothing but scoring well and lacks trustworthy abilities in orchestrating, drawing fouls or defense. Jordan Poole, Tyler Herro, Collin Sexton and Anfernee Simons all belong to this category.

Poole signed a four-year, $128 million extension with the Golden State Warriors last summer after Herro inked a four-year, $120 million deal with the Miami Heat. Poole was traded by the Warriors to the Washington Wizards for 38-year-old Chris Paul – the Warriors even had to add two draft picks to sweeten the pot – after a disappointing 2022-23 campaign. Herro did well in the regular season before missing most of the playoffs because of injury. Nonetheless, he was involved in nearly every trade scenario whenever there was a star player available for the Heat to chase.

Sexton joined the Utah Jazz from the Cleveland Cavaliers in September 2022 on a four-year, $71 million contract via sign-and-trade. He only started 15 of his 48 games in the Jazz last season. Simons signed a four-year, $100 million extension with the Portland trail Blazers in July 2022. He had some highlights at the beginning of the 2022-23 campaign, but failed to meet the team's expectation on him to make the new back court pair with Damian Lillard as the season went on.

The stories abut the above players gave the 76ers good reasons to reconsider if they should jump to a big contract with Maxey and then lock most of their cap space from the 2024-25 season. The team surely wants to win a title before the reigning MVP Joel Embiid's prime runs out. That means they need to grab any asset they have and squeeze every last drop of value from it. Maxey is a promising young man with his rookie contract, but may not be so when his salary increases by eight times.

In fact, Jordan Clarkson may be a good example for how much players of Maxey's category should make. Clarkson average 20.8 points for the Jazz last season. He exercised the player option for the 2023-24 season, which is the final year of his four-year, $51,5 million contract. He also agreed to a three-year, $55 million extension with the Jazz last week.

However, it will be mission impossible to convince Maxey to accept a deal like the above. That's why it is actually not so crazy when ESPN's Brian Windhorst said the 76ers might trade Maxey, potentially for Lillard, who has requested a trade from the Trail Blazers.