The Philadelphia 76ers are too afraid to hire Daryl Morey

The Philadelphia 76ers front office isn’t ready for Daryl Morey-sized shake up… but it should be.

On September 13th, Mike D’Antoni informed the Houston Rockets that he would not be returning as the team’s head coach for the 2020-21 season.

Why? Because he wanted to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers to replace Brett Brown as the team’s next head coach.

In theory, the pairing made sense. D’Antoni served as an assistant head coach under Brown in 2015-16 and was by all accounts a favorite to win the job if it wasn’t for Doc Rivers‘ surprise firing from the Los Angeles Clippers.

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Why is this relevant? Because D’Antoni’s longtime partner in crime, Daryl Morey, also just handed in his walking papers to a rapidly devolving Rockets organization approaching a ‘franchisanal’ crossroads. Did D’Antoni also hand in his resignation to come to our beautiful City of Brotherly Love?

Probably not, but he should have.

As you may or may not know, Morey is the mentor of Sam Hinkie and a great proponent of analytics-based team building. He identified James Harden as an MVP-caliber player when he was stuck in a sixth-man role on the OKC Thunder, hired D’Antoni to shake up a mediocre offense, acquired Chris Paul to play in a guard-focused ISO ball offense, and even revolutionized the league with one of the smallest ball lineups in recent memory at the 2020 trade deadline.

Did all of those moves work? Eh, some would argue the micro-ball 2019-20 Rockets could ultimately lead to D’Antoni failing to land a head coaching job this fall, but no one can say Morey didn’t stick to his convictions and do what he thought was the best possible move at the time.

Which is why the Sixers won’t even touch Morey as a potential executive above Elton Brand in their still-work-in-progress front office.

A few years back, in a post-Coleangelo world, Sixers fans pinned something fierce for Morey as a return to the ‘The Process’ glory. They loved his willingness to be an outspoken face of the franchise – even if it would eventually go on to borderline ruin the entire league’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China – and felt confident that he would hold strong against any external pressure brought on by the team’s ownership group one way or another.

A Morey team would never sell off second-round picks for cash or get fleeced by the Boston Celtics not once but twice in a very public pursuit of Washington guards. If he was going to trade away multiple first-round picks for a guard who can’t shoot very well from beyond the arc, it was going to be because he’s best friends with the team’s best player and an ex-league MVP, but because of peer pressure that he’d turn into the next Harden.

Something tells me the Philadelphia 76ers’ front office doesn’t want that guy in the building.

For better or worse – you be the judge – I have a feeling the Sixers’ front office really likes Elton Brand because he’s a homegrown talent. He began his post-basketball career as a developmental consultant for the team in 2016, learned how to generally manage on the fly with the Blue Coats, and brought those in-house skills to the big club when he was hired as the 76ers’ general manager in September of 2018.

When the front office came to the conclusion that Markelle Futz wasn’t going to be the team’s third star, Brand identified Jimmy Butler as a third star and traded away two fan favorites to make it happen. He then traded even more of the war chest Hinkie so carefully amassed over the team’s bad years to add Tobias Harris and a pair of short-term bench upgrades.

Brand’s most uniquely creative idea was forgoing the fast, 3-happy style of play that had become the standard in the NBA for a bigger, slower style of play that failed pretty spectacularly when the five were actually on the court together.

Who knows, maybe Morey would have come to the same conclusion based on the pieces available, but the Sixers trades for Harris and eventually, Matisse Thybulle highlighted a front office overly committed to landing very specific players even if they had to pay a premium for their services.

Hiring an edgy trailblazer like Morey takes guts, and unfortunately, it feels like the Sixers are a team on the defensive, not openly attacking the future with reckless abandon.

dark. Next. The peculiar case of Mike Scott’s future

When the Philadelphia 76ers announced that they’d be re-evaluating their front office after the firing of Brett Brown, it generated a bit more false hope in the City of Brotherly Love than many a fan would like to admit. While many hoped that would mean hiring a talented basketball mind to work directly with, above or below Elton Brand, as opposed to moving on from their director of scouting, it’s clear the team’s front office is more or less happy with how things are built right now. That means any hopes of adding a marquee front-office mind, the Doc Rivers of general managers, if you will, is effectively off the team’s shopping list heading into the draft and free agency. *sigh* I guess there’s always next year, when Daryl Morey will surely still be available… right?