The controversial Jared McCain trade made by the Sixers this week has drawn a lot of local criticism, based on a perception that Joshua Harris’ team will prioritize ducking the luxury tax over moves that can impact the team. But in Daryl Morey’s post-deadline presser, he highlighted the team’s main reason for moving on from McCain, believing that they moved him at the best possible time for the organization.

“I am quite confident we’re selling high,” Morey said Friday. “Obviously, time will tell.”

“We weren’t looking to sell, I’ll be frank. Teams came to us with aggressive offers for him, and you could say yeah, it’s because he’s a good player, and I agree with that. We thought this return was above, for the future value for our franchise, what we could get. So the only higher point would have been during his run last season. Otherwise, we feel like we did time this well.”

In that sense, it is a fairly straightforward move. For as long as it lasted, McCain’s rookie season in Philadelphia inspired fans to believe he had solidified himself as part of a future core of young guards. But after McCain’s injury that wiped out the rest of the year, there was rarely a moment where the Sixers made a strong commitment to McCain as an essential part of the franchise. Drafting VJ Edgecombe was signal enough on its own, but in offseason interviews and through minute allotment during this season, the Sixers consistently stepped around questions that treated McCain as an essential piece.

Frankly, his play on the floor this season justified that approach. Despite a recent hot stretch, McCain has been a massive disappointment in year two, shooting 38.5 percent from the field, struggling inside the arc while being an active negative on the defensive end of the floor. Nick Nurse gave McCain a solid two months to play himself into a role from mid-November through mid-January, and things rarely ever clicked. Most of his perceived value to Philadelphia was theoretical — McCain was a shooting option off the bench, certainly, but one who spent a good chunk of the year stepping out of open jumpers and lacking the physicality or confidence to score consistently.

McCain’s supporters would (somewhat rightfully) point out that it was early days for a player who’d had such an impactful injury in a crowded rotation, and that’s the bet the Thunder are making with this trade. OKC is not under any immediate pressure to play him, and will get the opportunity to see if McCain’s poor form to open the year is the aberration. The argument is not so much that trading McCain hurts right now, but that the Sixers have given up on a higher-upside player than they can acquire using the picks they got back for him.

According to Morey, the Sixers did make efforts to upgrade the team before the deadline, including in scenarios where the picks they acquired would get sent right out in exchange for win-now help.

“Because we’re playing well, we were trying to upgrade the team and add to the team now. That was goal number one,” Morey said. “Obviously, no deal materialized, including using the picks we got from the Jared deal. We were trying to, that’s why we did that move a little early, we were trying to reuse those draft picks to add now…nothing materialized.”

“I think [the organization] is 100 percent aligned….we’re in a phase where win now makes sense, I would just ask, and this is probably something we can maybe talk offline, we didn’t see any that move the needle for our team. I’d be happy to talk offline with folks on which deals they saw that could have moved the needle for us that we could have done. They just weren’t there.”

The implication from Morey is that it was not for lack of effort or interest to improve the team, but a lack of concrete options to acquire, unless the Sixers were prepared to massively overpay. Several potential targets at the 3/4 spots, and potential alterations to their deadline plan, went absolutely nowhere at the deadline:

• Houston power forward Tari Eason was a hot name at the deadline heading into restricted free agency, but the Rockets held a very high price for Eason in the midst of a brilliant shooting year in the frontcourt
• Veteran wings on bad teams like Naji Marshall and Saddiq Bey stayed with their respective teams, with plenty of reporting in both markets suggesting the Mavs or Pelicans would have had to be bowled over with an offer (take a look at where Saddiq Bey has played and where executive Troy Weaver was during those stops)
• The Sixers inquired about different variations of their trade with the Thunder that would have returned an OKC rotation player, sources say, but those variations ultimately did not gain much traction

That does not necessarily justify an incoming return of nothing to help on the floor for Philadelphia this season, and explaining all of this to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey is arguably the toughest part of this deadline. With Maxey an All-Star and Embiid returning to form this season — not to mention appealing to ownership to stay over the tax — it remains to be seen how their stars will respond to the team spinning a move for the future to their core.

Morey said Friday that Embiid’s words didn’t fall on deaf ears and that for anyone upset about a lack of immediate help, they understand the frustration.

“I took his comments to heart,” Morey said. “I feel like myself and the front office, we’re stewards of the team, and we’re here to make the team better. I think we’ve done a lot of good things to get the team in this situation. But for this deadline, I understand the reaction that we didn’t add.”

Whatever the verdict ends up being, the Sixers did not back down from the reasons why they ultimately decided to move on from McCain. It may have taken some sting out of the move to get help for the core at this deadline, but otherwise, we can only wait to see if their evaluation of the player and incoming picks was correct.