Daryl Morey’s tenure as Sixers’ president of basketball operations has come to an end. He will be remembered in Philadelphia as another key figure who couldn’t get over the hump that is the second round of the playoffs.
He leaves the Sixers in a very similar situation to how he found them. The Joel Embiid and Paul George contracts are team-building anchors just like those of Tobias Harris and Al Horford. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are the enticing prospects in spite of that, like Embiid and Ben
Simmons were at the time.
Throughout the hits and misses of his tenure — of which there were many — one thing became clearer as Morey had more time in the big seat for Philly. This was not the innovative, forward-thinker the fanbase thought the team had hired in the fall of 2020.
Back when he was running the Houston Rockets, the term coined for adopting the most optimized shot diet was literally called “Moreyball.” Fast forward to his final years running the Sixers, he is complaining about teams taking too many threes as his team finished 21st in three-point attempts and fielded multiple starting lineups where the starting forwards wouldn’t attempt one.
Morey’s track record at drafting in Philadelphia was surprisingly better than many expected, but the lack of creativity showed in many of his free-agent acquisitions and trades. The latter ended up being far more important for a team looking for the final pieces to push them over the top into true title contention.
The best trades he made for the Sixers also resembled his best move for the Rockets: trading James Harden. Both acquiring and shipping off Harden were net positives for the Sixers, but Morey’s process came with a cost.
Sitting on Simmons as long as he did until Harden became available got them an All-Star while giving the Nets what was becoming one of the worst contracts in the league. Waiting as long as they did sunk their chances of competing in a fairly open Eastern Conference that season. As they were trying to figure out the Embiid-Harden pairing on the fly, the 2021-2022 Sixers’ season ended in six games to the No. 1 seeded Miami Heat.
He did the same thing when Harden didn’t want to play for the Sixers anymore, letting the trade request linger into the season. Again, the return he got was seen as favorable, but it again left the roster incomplete for Embiid to carry as he was improving on an MVP-caliber season.
This time, Embiid’s knee broke down as he carried a flawed roster through the regular season. Entering Golden State already hobbled, he suffered a meniscus tear in January 2024 that he is still trying to fully get back on track from.
If the Harden saga wasn’t enough, Morey continuing to go back to his Houston Rocket pool continued to the verge of parody. In his first offseason after adding Harden to the Sixers, Morey got the Sixers hit with tampering charges in the process of acquiring P.J. Tucker and Danuel House, two guys from Harden’s heyday in Houston.
Morey ended up bringing so many ex-Rockets of his, that a Sixers beat writer at the time thought it was worth making a sporcle quiz to see if fans could guess all of them.
The pivot Morey made out of the Harden situation was another sign that the league had passed him by. With another season of Embiid’s prime punted to load up on cap space, Morey threw a max contract at Paul George, solidifying the roster with three max guys under a new CBA that is very harsh to big spenders.
The constraints to fill out a roster immediately became a problem. The team was unable to withstand consistent injuries to the max guys and the team won 24 games as a result. They got better injury luck and lottery luck the following year and were able to win a playoff series, but the top-end nature of the roster helped to sink them against a true title contender in the New York Knicks.
Morey’s tenure wasn’t all bad for sure. He leaves reasons of hope that whoever his replacement is can turn the Sixers into a serious basketball team again. If there’s one thing he wasn’t during his tenure here, it was the guy in Houston who was always one step ahead of the rest of the league.
