With Daryl Morey out, where do Sixers go from here?

Two days after the Sixers were unceremoniously booted from the playoffs by the New York Knicks, Daryl Morey is out as President of Basketball Operations for the 76ers. It ends a six-year tenure in Philadelphia that featured early flashes of brilliance and great draft success before the franchise ultimately settled into the dreaded middle.

After taking over the team in late 2020, Morey quickly pivoted the Sixers away from the loathsome 2019-20 edition of the team, jettisoning Al Horford and Josh Richardson in exchange for shooting. Combined with the selection of Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia vaulted to the very top of the Eastern Conference before ultimately flaming out in round two. And then began a mini series of stars rebelling against the organization — first it was Ben Simmons, mad at a coach Morey hadn’t hired, and later it was James Harden, the man Morey eventually traded Simmons for.

Philadelphia pivoting from a disgruntled Simmons into Harden is almost certainly undervalued locally, as it allowed the Sixers to remain competitive in Embiid’s prime by turning a player on his way out of the league into a table setter for Embiid and an ascending Maxey. The 2022-23 team won more games than any Sixers team since the 2001 Finals outfit. But Morey’s public fallout with Harden in 2023 — a he-said/he-said divide to this day — was the start of a less rosy stretch with stars than Morey was accustomed to. More recently, Joel Embiid publicly called out Morey after the team ruled the big man out for an April Fool’s Day game against Washington, after Embiid missed team activities the morning of the game. Their franchise center was also publicly cranky about the team’s decision to trade Jared McCain with no incoming help at the trade deadline, after he told reporters he hoped they would not just duck the luxury tax. Given the opportunity to comment on his relationship with management during exit interviews, Embiid sidestepped the question and focused his attention elsewhere.

Morey’s most recent player management snafu was less about the trade of McCain than his comments about the move after the deadline. Securing a first-round pick and three more seconds for a player on the fringe of Philadelphia’s rotation was a perfectly reasonable value play given the fit issues for McCain next to the Sixers’ other guards. But after suggesting they “sold high” on McCain, who had been the Rookie of the Year favorite before a meniscus injury, the second-year guard almost immediately bounced back in Oklahoma City, and Morey’s comments have been oft-repeated after every big McCain shooting performance in the months since. Those comments reflected a fairly dim internal view of McCain — multiple sources say the Sixers were skeptical McCain would play at all in OKC, let alone make an appreciable impact in the playoffs.

There were, of course, big draft wins under Morey, which include Maxey and McCain but also VJ Edgecombe, the last of whom was a popular but hardly consensus selection at No. 3. Philadelphia’s hit rate on second-round talent was relatively high during Morey’s tenure, with players like Paul Reed, Isaiah Joe, and Charles Bassey providing far more than expected value for their draft slots. Their draft night trade for De’Anthony Melton was a great value play on a young and versatile player, even if Melton’s health eventually robbed him of his rotation spot. Unfortunately, Philadelphia also managed to squander some of the young talent they were able to pluck from unexpected places, with Joe a pure salary cap casualty who went on to play important minutes for the defending champion Thunder.

But Morey waiving Joe brings us to an existential question looming over the franchise. How many of Philadelphia’s failures under Morey and other executives come down to talent evaluation failures vs. the limitations imposed by ownership?

The Sixers, as Embiid noted pre-deadline, have been a consistent tax-ducking team under Josh Harris despite being one of the league’s better regular-season teams over the last six years. The most damning example came in 2023, when the Sixers won 54 games with a resurgent Harden and MVP-level Joel Embiid, choosing only to swap out Matisse Thybulle for a slightly cheaper Jalen McDaniels at the deadline, accomplishing nothing aside from saving the owner money. It was a move incongruent with Morey’s history of doing anything possible to enhance championship odds for a team with a real shot at a title.

Philadelphia has also made a habit of carrying just 14 players on its roster to start new seasons, leaving them closer to tax-ducking territory and shorter on role players than a serious team should be. This has created a cycle where they can claim Harris would pay the tax if they were a serious contender, but the team is never quite serious enough by the time the deadline rolls around, opening the door for the Sixers to justify cutting costs and leaving them in “good but not good enough” territory. That’s a choice much bigger than Morey, who is rather famous for his obsession with championship equity.

There lies the question for whoever takes this position next: Will that person be able to operate better under the same parameters? The Sixers are still armed with some valuable draft capital, including multiple Clippers assets, but their options in this summer’s free agency are limited. A new lead executive might shift things like the types of players they value and draft, but that person will ultimately be operating under the same restrictions, whether it is the current salary sheet or owner-mandated.

On the salary front, one could argue Embiid’s extension is the biggest problem the franchise is currently saddled with. Despite some genuinely brilliant moments this season, including in their Game 7 win vs. Boston, the center’s dollars earned/games played ratio remains completely out of whack, and giving Embiid an extra two years was part of convincing George to commit to Philadelphia. The choice to pursue an older three-star team has not worked out in a league increasingly leaning toward depth and youth to make deep runs through the playoffs, and the next head of basketball operations will be tasked with figuring out how to either pivot out of this build or tweak it around the edges. Could a new voice opt to make a more dramatic pivot with no connection to the current set of players and contracts?

Speaking of tweaks, there are power players in the organization to account for:

• Nick Nurse is expected to stick around for next season, and while I generally subscribe to the “let a new GM pick his guy” belief to start fresh, I do not think retaining Nurse will have any negative impact on hiring whoever is up next. Fans have plenty of reasonable frustration with the head coach, but he has a good reputation around the league, had a very good playoff series of adjustments against Boston, and has a good rep as a collaborator.
• Crazier things have happened in Philadelphia, but I do not think Bob Myers is leading this upcoming search for a new exec so that he can give himself the job running just the Sixers. Everything I have heard about him is that he wants the cross-sport responsibility that he currently has, not another NBA-only job. Maybe I end up being wrong!
• Do not take this as “Elton Brand is going to get the job” because I can’t truthfully tell you what the Sixers want at this position yet, but I think it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility that Brand could end up being promoted back into the lead executive position. He’s had multiple chances to leave for other gigs, and I think the truth of his time as the main guy in Philly is a lot muddier than a list of transactions would suggest. Brand has retained good standing internally and externally because of the funky dynamics from that time period.

Myers and Josh Harris are expected to speak to reporters on Thursday evening, where a vision for the future of the 76ers should become slightly clearer. And whether you were rooting for Morey’s firing or not, this is a massive opportunity and opening that could shift the future of the franchise. If nothing else, the Sixers owe the city and the fans an exhaustive, far-reaching search to try to drive this team closer to that elusive championship.