September 30, 2024
Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports
Daryl Morey knows he needs his offseason success to translate to playoff wins.
The Sixers' 2024 offseason -- considered by many to be a massive success -- truly began on June 29, 2023.
News broke that James Harden was opting into the final year of his contract with the team and demanding an immediate trade after negotiations on a new deal were fruitless. The crux of the issue: Harden wanted a long-term commitment, but Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey was only willing to offer a short-term deal. Suddenly, one of the most famous executive-player pairings in recent NBA history was at the center of a summer-long fizzling out.
When Morey refused to offer a long-term contract to Harden, he was telegraphing his vision for the future of the Sixers: maximizing the team's financial flexibility the following summer to chase a different big fish, one who had a better chance of putting the Sixers over the top.
457 days later, Morey took a seat next to head coach Nick Nurse. He sat in front of reporters on Media Day at the team's practice facility in Camden, NJ with a smile.
After all, Morey endured a summer of heavy criticism as a result of personal attacks made by Harden. Eventually, he traded the All-Star guard to the Los Angeles Clippers for a package of expiring contracts and draft picks that brought the Sixers even more optionality from a salary cap perspective. He held off on acquiring any players with more than one year left on their contracts at the trade deadline. Morey even declined to offer Tyrese Maxey a contract extension -- not because of a lack of faith in Maxey, but to protect every single dollar of 2024 cap space he possibly could.
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There is a lot to be said about Morey, but he has proven time and time again that he is willing to open himself up to intense scrutiny. He did just that for over a year, a time in which he became a figurative punching bag in the city of Philadelphia.
But there Morey sat on Monday, the person in charge of an organization which boasts the most talented trio of stars in the NBA. Former NBA MVP Joel Embiid does not just have Maxey by his side, but the Sixers' year-plus of maneuvering enabled them to pounce when nine-time All-Star wing Paul George decided his time with the Clippers was over. Maxey and George each signed max contracts with the Sixers -- Maxey's for five years, George's for four seasons -- and just like that, Embiid might have the best supporting cast of his career.
"The opportunity to get a Paul George is pretty rare," Morey said. "Obviously, Tyrese and his development [have] really opened up a lot of opportunities for us to be as good as we want to be. As he continues to improve, that allows us to address other areas with the remaining amount of our overall cap room."
In today's restrictive salary cap environment in the NBA, it is immensely difficult to put together teams with three All-Star-caliber players and quality depth. But Morey maximized every penny available to him in order to round out what should be an elite starting five by bringing Kelly Oubre Jr. back into the fold and adding former Miami Heat standout wing Caleb Martin.
Morey replaced Paul Reed -- who was waived to make room for Martin and claimed by the Detroit Pistons -- with Andre Drummond, whose first stint in Philadelphia went wonderfully until it was cut short. He signed three established veteran guards on minimum contracts: the returning Kyle Lowry will have a major role for his hometown team, while an old favorite of Morey's in Eric Gordon figures to provide crucial floor spacing and Reggie Jackson offers stability in the point guard depth chart.
"One of the critical areas we needed to address were backup center," Nurse said. "I think we needed to address some depth. I think we did both those things. I think we needed to address some shooting. We’ve done that. I think we needed to address some experience, we’ve added some of that."
But no parade is thrown to celebrate shrewd salary cap management and positive-value transactions. All of that work must translate into the Sixers winning basketball games -- not just between the months of October and March, but particularly beyond then.
Any executive in Morey's position would feel some sort of satisfaction right now. Outlining a long-term plan, having it mocked routinely and then executing that vision to perfection would provide plenty of catharsis for anybody. But Morey knows there will be no banner for carrying out an often-maligned plan of action.
"We’re focused on April, May, June," Morey said.
For months, Morey has only been able to do what the rest of the basketball world is doing: imagine what all of this will look like on the floor. With the start of the 2024-25 season upon us, we are getting close to finding out.
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