With the Sixers beginning their first of two four-day layoffs over the next week and change, and with 23 games in the books, now is a good time to take a step back and evaluate how things have gone so far in 2025-26 and where they could go in the months ahead.

Or, I suppose, we could wonder about a trade idea so enormous that our brains will begin malfunctioning.

Luckily, this week's Sixers mailbag has questions that fit both of the above descriptions.

Let's dive in:

From @christomelbounre.bsky.social: Should the team trade Tyrese Maxey for Giannis Antetokounmpo for as close to a straight swap as possible?

Antetokoummpo, who has finished in the top five of NBA MVP voting seven years in a row, appears to be closer to demanding a trade than he has ever been during his 13-year career, the entirety of which has been spent with the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo suffered a calf strain in his first game after ESPN reported heightened interest in a potential trade request, and he will seemingly miss about a month of action while his teammates try to win enough games for the two-time MVP to feel compelled to stick around.

Now, to your question: it is not quite possible to perform a straight swap of Antetokounmpo and Maxey, as the Sixers' sixth-year guard has a salary more than $16 million below that of Antetokounmpo. The Sixers would have to add considerable salary just to make the trade legal, let alone fair. If Quentin Grimes was willing to waive his no-trade clause – he should not be – the money could become a bit easier to configure. But it would be financially irresponsible for Grimes to do that unless the Bucks can demonstrate that they have a path to cap space in the summer and a willingness to use it on him.

Trading any salary of Antetokounmpo's magnitude during the season is an enormous challenge, and I suspect Milwaukee will have a very difficult time doing so unless they end up taking back a player with a similarly massive deal. Joel Embiid's salary is very close to that of Antetokounmpo, but it should go without saying that Milwaukee will not take Embiid back in such a deal.

There is no question that Maxey would be at or very near the top of the list in terms of assets the Bucks could get back for Antetokounmpo, and it seems safe to assume Bucks head coach Doc Rivers would be excited about the idea of building a team around Maxey.

Antetokounmpo is one of the single greatest players of his generation, and if surrounded properly, he can be the centerpiece of a perennial championship contender. But the reason I will say no to your question is that, after trading Maxey plus at least one of VJ Edgecombe or Jared McCain, multiple additional rotation pieces and potentially considerable draft compensation as well, the Sixers would not have nearly enough to have the right personnel around Antetokoummpo.

It might make them better. But to what end?

This harkens back to my answer to the leading question of last week's mailbag. The Sixers doing any amount of pushing in their chips to improve their short-term championship odds is not just a gamble on their side of the trade being more valuable, but also Embiid and Paul George being healthy enough and productive enough to pay that off.

Having two supermax contracts on the books in Antetokounmpo and Embiid, with George making well over $50 million annually over the next three years, and a dwindling nucleus of young talent, is not the right recipe.

MORE: LeBron James, Maxey sing each other's praises; how will Sixers utilize long layoff?

From @kellenpastore.bsky.social: With Kelly Oubre Jr. nearing a return, how does the Sixers rotation change? Does he take minutes from Jabari Walker/Dominick Barlow, or is Jared McCain pushed out of the rotation?

I will add Trendon Watford to your question; updates on the recoveries of Oubre and Watford are both due in the next few days. Last we saw Oubre on the court, he was playing some of the best and most well-rounded basketball of his life as a high-minutes starter. Watford briefly had a run in the starting lineup before head coach Nick Nurse returned him to the bench in favor of Barlow, but Watford remained an important piece of the rotation.

As Barlow continues to surge, Walker makes important strides and McCain joins Maxey, Edgecombe and Grimes in a loaded backcourt mix, Nurse will have a difficult time picking and choosing who will remain in the rotation. Of course, history does tell us that injury issues will to some degree make those decisions for Nurse; the last two seasons have been a constant Whac-A-Mole situation where an important contributor returning from injury is immediately followed up by a different player going down.

But, if they ever do get fully healthy, the Sixers have quite a few players who are at least deserving of consistent action. This is how I would rank all of the obvious options, sorted by position:

Maxey is basically a lock to log more minutes than anyone else in the NBA. Edgecombe will continue to play as often as he can, with Grimes among the highest-minute reserves in the league and McCain also too important in the non-Maxey minutes to be forgotten. Nurse will keep relying on three-guard lineups with consistency.

One of the likely ramifications: Justin Edwards falling out of the mix. The sophomore wing has just not played well enough to earn consistent playing time, even if he is capable of providing solid minutes. Oubre should start once he is back and playing like himself, but the 36.7 minutes per game he was averaging before he got injured is not a realistic number. Oubre had become a critical component of Nurse's plan to piece together 48 minutes at power forward, but with Paul George back, both Barlow and Walker playing well and Watford eventually rejoining the mix, Nurse might actually have too many options at the four.

While Adem Bona remains an important part of this team's future and Andre Drummond has done tremendous work to bounce back in his age-32 season, there is a compelling case that, on nights Embiid is in the lineup, the Sixers should eschew both players from their regular rotation, slide Barlow and/or Walker up to the five in small-ball lineups and clear the way for both of those two-way players to play in addition to Watford. It is something I would strongly consider, particularly because Drummond and Bona will both still be relied upon quite a bit given Embiid's constant availability issues.

MORE: Sixers' shrewd two-way signings paying off in major way

From @Ordca3Cord: Why did Nick Nurse not use McCain at all during the third quarter when the Lakers went zone? We couldn’t hit any threes so why not bring in a guy who can hit them?

This has been the most common question to emerge from the Sixers' loss on Sunday night. Nurse himself was asked it immediately after the game. I will allow him to explain:

"The only reason was they were really big on the floor and just, we were getting really pounded physically," Nurse said. "And not the greatest matchup for him defensively was the reason, yeah."

I am not sure I completely agreed with Nurse's choice to sit McCain, given how starved the Sixers were for offensive juice and how well his shooting might have countered the Lakers' zone defense. But Los Angeles deserves credit: their roster has three players in LeBron James, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves who constantly force opposing teams to assign a high-caliber defender to them. It is rare for a team to have three offensive players so dynamic, but the ones that do will make it harder for the Sixers to play Maxey and McCain together unless Nurse is willing to let one of them handle oversized defensive duties.

There is no question that McCain is fourth in the pecking order of the Sixers' young guards right now, and given the slow curve of his improvement since returning from a torn meniscus, it is understandable. If McCain gets to a point later in the season in which he looks as terrific offensively as he did as a rookie and still has this short of a leash, it should be a cause for concern. Right now, he is a victim of a numbers game more than anything.

MORE: Sixers-Lakers instant observations