Whether you’re Team Harden or Team Morey in the latest 76ers drama, one thing has become clear: Daryl Morey has been a common thread in a lot of this franchise’s issues in recent years.
To be fair, it’s not all on Morey. He inherited a ton of issues when Philadelphia hired him and was always going to be fighting an uphill battle in a few key areas. But this is a franchise that had championship expectations, and there has been no shortage of opportunities for that to happen during Morey’s tenure.
But every step of the way, things have gone wrong.
Morey has made plenty of great moves. His analytical approach is clearly working really well for finding valuable role players and making cost-effective signings. His drafting Tyrese Maxey seems like a big win. But that doesn’t make up for some of the huge L’s he’s taken.
Here’s a look at the three biggest issues that have turned Sixers fans against Morey over the years.
Daryl Morey’s 76ers Lowlights
3. Doc Rivers Love
The 76ers completely botched the Daryl Morey hiring from the start. Hiring a head coach and then hiring the GM is doing things totally backward, so Morey gets a pass on having Doc Rivers in town to begin with.
But Morey could have moved on from Rivers very quickly and nobody would have held it against him after the bizarre hiring order.
Rivers was already known for having his teams fall apart in the postseason before coming to Philly, and that got even worse over the last three seasons.
The Sixers were eliminated in the second round after going up 2-1 in the 2021 playoffs, completely collapsed with a 35-point loss in Game 5 against the Heat in the 2022 postseason before blowing a 3-2 series lead over the Celtics, losing the final two games by a combined 33 points in 2023.
That was two clear opportunities to move on before the final nail in the coffin, and Morey refused to make what was ultimately a pretty easy decision.
Of course, his issues go well beyond poor coaching decisions.
2. Bungling the Simmons Trade
Morey didn’t draft Ben Simmons, so like the Doc situation you can’t fault the guy for what he inherited.
The bizarre Simmons holdout/injury/mental health season does fall on Morey’s plate though, but even if you want to place the blame 100% on Simmons for that ordeal, it’s still a blunder from Morey.
Reports floated around that the Kings had offered a phenomenal trade package for Simmons, one that was highlighted by Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield and two first-round picks.
Sixers fans have obviously built up some resentment for trading productive players for future assets, but this wasn’t a case of blowing things up to rebuild. Simmons was not productive and Haliburton is looking like one of the most promising young players in the league.
Considering how the Harden experiment has played out, it didn’t even need to be Haliburton to be a better trade option. Just the knowledge that that’s the level of offer Simmons was still going to command makes the Harden trade that much more underwhelming.
It’s hard not to get frustrated when thinking about the what-ifs that could have been if we made that Haliburton deal. It’s also hard not to get frustrated with how the reality of the situation played out.
1. James Harden
The entire James Harden situation is another one that is hard to excuse no matter how you want to spin it for Morey.
Let’s be generous. Let’s say the starting point was that this was a terrific trade by bringing in a former MVP in his prime to join another prime MVP candidate as the backbone of a hopeful championship team.
First of all, keeping Doc Rivers around really blew the chances of doing something special with that duo.
And between Rivers and front-office drama, Morey has clearly burned any and all bridges with Harden, who has no intention of suiting up for Philly this year. And if contract issues force him to, do we really expect Harden to give us any kind of serious effort?
But instead of trading Harden while this drama was mostly behind the scenes, Morey publicly shut down any trade rumors, leading to Harden taking this feud public and making comments that completely tank his trade value.
Can you blame Morey for Harden reacting in such an extreme (and probably foolish) way? No, but you can certainly fault Morey for letting this situation drag on long enough to reach that point.
So now, however this plays out, we’ll have ultimately traded Ben Simmons for basically nothing. We didn’t lose much by getting rid of Simmons, but the opportunity cost of having not brought in a better package and not having moved Harden when we could still get a good return for him could haunt the 76ers for years to come.
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