How much blame does Daryl Morey deserve for the 76ers woes

A lot of terrible things have happened to the Philadelphia 76ers in the last decade.

But how many of them actually happened under Daryl Morey’s watch?

Daryl Morey was hired by the Philadelphia 76ers on November 2, 2020. By my calculations, most of the bad luck, incompetence, witchcraft, inexplicable disasters and tragicomedy that has resulted in the royally screwed 2026 76ers happened before November 2, 2020. Trading the Jayson Tatum pick for the Markelle Fultz pick? Before Morey. Jimmy Butler trade? Before Morey. Tobias Harris and Ben Simmons contracts? Before Morey. Trading Mikal Bridges for Zhaire Smith? Before Morey. 

Morey was recently fired by the 76ers, ending his long and high-profile tenure as one of the league’s most philosophically convinced executives: 3-pointers and layups, no long twos. In service of that philosophy, he made mistakes, as does every GM. But most of the damage had already been done, and I honestly believe he positioned the 76ers as well as he possibly could have in his six-year tenure. His firing signalled that it was time for a new philosophy, but Morey gave the team a pretty good shot given the hand he was dealt.

Upon his hiring in November 2020, Morey was immediately presented with two non-negotiables. First, Doc Rivers was his head coach, having been hired just a month earlier. Second, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were his franchise players. Every move the 76ers had made for three full years was in service of that plan. Morey was handed the keys, sure, but they were for a company car with engine issues. So he quickly drafted Tyrese Maxey 16 days into his job, and got to work with what he was given.

There’s a scene in Rush (2013) when F1 driver Niki Lauda is test-driving a Ferrari and says “it’s terrible. Drives like a pig,” to which his mechanic replies “Oh, you can’t say that… it’s a Ferrari!”

That, in essence, is what Morey was presented with.

He never got to test drive anything, never really got to buy his own car. And he had to stick with Embiid, the man who a tortured city’s hopes were all pinned on after years of intentional failure. Once Embiid finished second, second and first in MVP voting between 2020 and 2023, that was it. Morey would be paying Embiid whatever he wanted for the rest of his career, no matter what. 

Then there’s Ben Simmons, a basketball/personal/financial/metaphysical disaster that will go down in mysterious legend. Morey famously executed a year-long standoff with Simmons before trading him for James Harden, but I may need to write a book titled “The Four Years that Made and Broke Ben Simmons” to explain to future generations that, prior to his on-court collapse in Game 7 of the 2021 Hawks series, Simmons was an All-NBA-level player. He was incredible, and then he was gone. We may never know exactly what happened, but the fact that Morey managed to acquire Harden — a great player, for all that comes with him — for a deflated asset like Simmons was remarkable. 

Harden was perhaps Morey’s kryptonite, a player with the tantalizing offensive tools that served his philosophy far better than Embiid or Simmons, with the former enjoying the mid-range jumper (Morey’s arch nemesis) and the latter incapable of shooting 3-pointers. He was convinced Harden was one of the most impactful players of his generation, and had built team after team around him in Houston. Had he instead committed to Maxey sooner, a player he drafted, perhaps Morey could have avoided the eventual blow up that ended he and Harden’s relationship. 

The 76ers’ current problems are mostly due to two contracts for Embiid and Paul George that are slated to pay out nearly $300 million in the next three years. In the era of the apron luxury tax, that is not a feasible way to build a basketball team. And while I won’t say Morey had no choice in handing them out (you always have a choice), Embiid was a non-negotiable. I also think clearing cap space for George and then actually signing him into it was an impressive maneuver at the time. Nobody ever sings a real, big free agent anymore, and 76ers didn’t have to give up anything to get him. That fourth year player option really hurts, I get it, but any GM in his position would have done it to get it done.

Those contracts were peak “if they don’t work, I’m going to get fired anyway so what do I care?” deals. They were big swings, and Morey hung his job on two expensive deals for injury prone players who just didn’t play enough to justify them. But what else was he supposed to do? Use the cap space to fund a lemonade stand? Would 76ers fans have preferred Morey not pay Embiid after he dropped 50 in a playoff game and have him demand a trade instead? 

It is interesting that the 76ers, the team most synonymous with rebuilding because of “The Process” has almost gone a full decade without tearing anything down — a period that spans Morey’s entire tenure. He was hired not to save the 76ers but to push a clearly talented roster out of the second round. Instead, he basically just became a crisis manager, always seemingly one step behind the next avalanche ready to bury the 76ers between every rock and every hard place.

But imagine if Morey had not drafted Tyrese Maxey at No. 21, and instead taken Zeke Nnaji or Leandro Bolmaro or R.J. Hampton, the three players pick after him? Imagine if Morey had salary-dumped Ben Simmons instead of acquiring Harden, or had filled the Paul George cap space with Buddy Hield, Royce O’Neale and DeMar DeRozan? What if he had filled it with another Tobias Harris extension? 

Would Philadelphia actually be better off?

Or are the 76ers’ present issues arguably the best possible situation for a team built around one of the least available superstars in the history of the league? Perhaps his philosophy has expired, and a new voice in the room should be welcomed or elevated. But I don’t think Morey should be blamed for the check engine light, the brakes seizing up and for the eventual crash — it wasn’t his car.