On the Sixers' Ladder of Blame, I Still Have Daryl Morey Third, and Can't Move Him Higher

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Daryl Morey is speaking Monday afternoon, so a short column on the Sixers' GM before he addresses the scribes in Camden.

Whenever we get to the end of a season, it's time to play the blame game. The players couldn't get it done, Joel Embiid couldn't stay healthy, the coach was outdone, and Morey didn't do enough to surround his best players with the right pieces. Depending on who you ask, Morey ranks anywhere from first to fourth on the arbitrary blame list, with Sixers ownership and Josh Harris specifically getting thrown into the mix.

If I'm putting together the list, I can't put Morey any higher than third. Can't put him any higher than the coaches or the players, especially not in years past, with Doc Rivers on the sideline. Maybe this season you can blame the players first and GM second, depending on how you feel about the job Nick Nurse did in the postseason, but my Daryl take goes something like this:

Morey has twice put together rosters good enough to go to the Eastern Conference Finals

You might call bullshit on that, but twice we've seen it in practice, once in 2021 and once in 2023. When Morey came him, he immediately got off Al Horford's contract, turned Josh Richardson into Seth Curry, and added Danny Green and Dwight Howard. That team finished 1st in the conference and I think we're all in agreement that they should have won that Hawks series. Maybe if Ben Simmons just dunked the damn ball instead of passing it, we wouldn't be writing columns like this one at all.

The other team was the 2022-2023 squad, full-season Harden with the Simmons saga in the rearview mirror. That team was a three seed, but won 54 games, which was the highest total since Allen Iverson led the Sixers to the finals more than 20 years ago. People seem to lose sight of this for some reason, probably because Milwaukee and Boston were 58 and 57-win teams, but this iteration of the Sixers won more games as a three seed than the 2020-2021 team as a 1 seed.

In came De'Anthony Melton, P.J. Tucker, and Danuel House. Harden settled and has his best three-point shooting year since 2012. Tyrese Maxey showed he was a legitimate player and even Tobias Harris played a consistent 74 games. Again Embiid was injured in the postseason, Harden worked some magic to singlehandedly win a couple of games in the Boston series, then had total clunkers in the others as the players and coach blew a 3-2 series lead with an opportunity to close it out in Game 6 at home.

The one take that I will never back down from is that the Sixers didn't lose that series for a lack of talent. The team was good enough to push the Celtics to the doorstep and they just didn't get the job done. Outside of perhaps the Boston bench, you can't make a legitimate argument that the Celtics were CLEARLY more talented. If anything, it was a wash.

That's why I can't go too hard on Morey. He's presided over what, four seasons now? Twice they went to Game 7 of the second round and should have advanced, but the coaches and players couldn't complete the task.

In terms of the Harden and Simmons thing, it's hard to say how much Morey is to blame or not blame for Ben wanting out, and then Harden also wanting out. Did he lie to his guy? Did he promise something and not deliver? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, he turned Harden into a bunch of expiring contracts and provided himself the rare opportunity to wipe the slate completely clean and build a roster entirely around Embiid and Maxey. I liken it to what Howie Roseman did with Carson Wentz, i.e. turning a bad situation into a good one, with the caveat of making it 100% clear that you can't receive too much credit for fixing your own mistakes. We can all use hindsight to say Morey should have done something more in the Simmons deal (Tyrese Halliburton?), but the 2023 Harden team was good enough for the ECF, and he then turned around and flipped all of it into a Tabula Rasa.

Which brings us to this past season. What even was this season? It follows a pattern, be it intentional or not. Daryl comes in in year 1, makes a couple of shrewd moves, then builds a contender. The following year, they deal with the Simmons nonsense and retool with an eye on 2023. This year? Sort of the basketball equivalent of a gap year. He turned Harden into all of those expiring contracts, again looking ahead. I'm not sure anyone expected the Sixers to be as competitive as they were with Embiid, Maxey, and guys like Kelly Oubre, Nic Batum, and a bunch of role players. We can split hairs over whether or not he should have moved Marcus Morris and Pat Bev, or acquired the aging Kyle Lowry, but it's probably a moot point because the Sixers go as Embiid goes, regardless of who occupies roster spots 6 through 10. Admit it, you didn't think they were gonna do shit this year, then maybe begrudgingly started following along again when they overachieved early.

If this year was indeed some sort of precursor to a focused 2024-2025 season, then turn the Morey scrutiny meter up to 10. He's no longer saddled with the Tobias Harris contract, and anything weighing him down from prior regimes is now completely off the books. This is his chance to build around an oft-injured superstar headed to the wrong side of 30 and a young guard who looks to be the future. There's no other excuse, is there? No Doc Rivers to (justifiably) absorb a lot of the blame. No Simmons, no Harden. Morey is basically tearing this thing down to the studs and "building back better," we hope. This will be year five as the window continues to close, so there's not much time remaining to get it right.

Daryl starts to rise on the arbitrary ladder of blame. I just couldn't put him there in past seasons, because twice in four years he crafted rosters good enough for the conference finals. That's a fact, JACK.

Kevin Kinkead

Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - [email protected]