What Happened In Philadelphia That Led To Daryl Morey's Firing?

Daryl Morey is out in Philadelphia. The 76ers parted ways with their president of basketball operations after another season that did not break through, and the show's NBA guest walked through how a run that featured an MVP and multiple max contracts ended in a firing.

The case the guest made was not that Morey was a bad executive. It was that the cumulative weight of Philadelphia's misses eventually had to land on someone.

"Daryl Morey showed faith in Joel Embiid and James Harden before that and Ben Simmons," the guest said. "Sometimes as a general manager, you have to show faith in your players. You have to give them those max offers. Ownership was on board with those offers."

The honest accounting was about what got built and what it produced.

"When you look back at the totality of this run that they've been on, somebody has to pay the price," the guest said. "They have not broken through. They just they haven't gotten to the conference finals. They haven't gotten to the finals."

The roster construction got the autopsy.

"You had a guy who's an MVP caliber player," the guest said. "The James Harden thing was a mess. The moves they've made on the margins haven't worked. They went and got Paul George. That hasn't worked out."

The conclusion was not personal.

"It's not that Daryl Morey is not a great general manager," the guest said. "I just think in Philly there was just too many cumulative things that, when you lose and when the things fall short, somebody pays the price. And in this time, it was Daryl."

Rich asked which of the contracts Morey is leaving behind are issues, and which are assets.

The guest split the roster cleanly.

"The presence are Maxey and Edgecombe," the guest said. "And some other players that are on the team."

The wedge Philadelphia is now caught in, in this framing, is the cap math.

"That's why they finally made a move here, because you can't really do much," the guest said. "When you have somebody who's built a team that is somewhat stuck now, they're just stuck by these contracts. There's not that much you can do on the margins. They got to keep Maxey. They got to keep Quentin Grimes. They got to keep people from a team that just got swept by the Knicks and looked, they're not close."

The pivot to Maxey-as-centerpiece happened during the season.

"I think they successfully pivoted to becoming Tyrese Maxey's team this year, where they're not built around Joel Embiid," the guest said. "They're built around Maxey. And Embiid is somebody who's there, and when he plays he's great, but they don't count on him night in and night out. So their fortunes don't necessarily rise and fall when he can play."

The Knicks series autopsy was layered.

"Maxey got hurt, his pinky's messed up," the guest said. "And Embiid was still playing his way back into shape after not being able to play for a while after appendicitis. Paul George was good. But the Knicks are a buzzsaw right now. They're playing great. And they just lost to a better team."

The contracts the Sixers are stuck with do not have movable answers.

"I don't see how you can move Joel Embiid's contract," the guest said. "His three-year deal starts this year."

The Paul George money has a different shape.

"You might be able to move Paul George," the guest said. "He played well enough. He doesn't have as many years left on that deal."

The conclusion came back to why a change had to happen at all.

"They're somewhat stuck, and that's why you bring in somebody new to look at it with fresh," the guest said.