End of the Morey era | Sports Daily Newsletter

After the 76ers were swept out of the playoffs by the Knicks, rumors began to swirl about moves being made to the front office.

On Tuesday evening, those speculations became official.

The Sixers parted ways with Daryl Morey, who spent six seasons as the president of basketball operations, during which the Sixers never advanced past the playoffs’ second round.

His tenure included Joel Embiid’s rise to the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player and drafting two-time All-Star Tyrese Maxey and All-Rookie first-teamer VJ Edgecombe.

He also signed Paul George to a max contract and Embiid to a max extension during the 2024 offseason — both players have not been regularly available since — and drew outside criticism for trading Jared McCain this past season.

Morey is a good decision-maker in the short-to-medium term. However, the window needs to be a bit wider now — the Sixers need to be thinking long term, writes columnist David Murphy.

Nick Nurse, meanwhile, will return for a fourth season as head coach. Bob Myers, president of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, will take over the front office in the interim and lead the search for the next executive.

— Isabella DiAmore, @phillysport, sports.daily@inquirer.com.

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Rodman Wanamaker is known as the Founding Father of the PGA. He is credited with creating the Professional Golfers Association in 1916 and designing the trophy for the PGA Championship. He’ll be remembered on Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square when the winner of the PGA Championship lifts the silver Wanamaker Trophy.

But in Philadelphia, Rodman is best known for the world’s largest organ he brought to Market Street — and how it became “the voice of Philadelphia.”

Rory McIlroy is rightfully near the top of the list of favorites this week to win his seventh major championship behind the No. 1 player in the world, Scottie Scheffler. Aronimink is a course that should set up well for McIlroy’s game.

The reigning Masters champion, who won at Augusta last month for the second consecutive year, is happy to be back in the area, even if he hasn’t played Aronimink enough to know what he likes most about it yet.

There are 3,000 volunteers, however, who know plenty about the golf club, and are helping the PGA Championship, which is expected to bring 200,000 spectators this week, run championship services, spectator services, and more.

Meet some of the folks who are helping with the foot traffic.

What a difference a year can make.

Twelve months ago, several Flyers took the podium for locker cleanout day expressing the team was “closer” than their 33-39-10 record indicated. That refrain seemed optimistic at best.

Fast-forward a year, and locker cleanout day had a totally different vibe after the Flyers defied the odds to make the postseason for the first time in six seasons. But one thing was clear on Tuesday: These Flyers are not satisfied with just making the playoffs, they believe this is just the start of an ascent to a much higher goal.

Also, the Flyers announced that Owen Tippett missed the Carolina series because of an “internal bleeding issue” he suffered in the first-round playoff series against Pittsburgh. The recovery did not progress to the point where Tippett felt it was safe to play, but the 27-year-old plans to be ready for training camp.

And Porter Martone isn’t quite done with hockey for the summer. He plans to join Team Canada for the upcoming World Championships in Switzerland.

Painter is scheduled to make his seventh major league start Wednesday night against the Red Sox. The Phillies rookie pitcher has taken his lumps early in the season, but his stuff remains promising. In particular, his fastball is averaging 96.1 mph. But opponents have teed off on the heater, batting .373 and slugging .576 against his four-seamer.

This is all part of the process. It’s not easy being a young pitcher in the big leagues. Though, he’s learning through experience.

And maybe watching starters like Zack Wheeler will help Painter. The Phillies ace dominated in a series-opening 2-1 victory in Fenway Park on Tuesday night.

Throughout the recent years of the Union’s success, club leaders have enjoyed boasting about how it’s happened with one of MLS’s lowest payrolls. But never in the club’s first 16 seasons did it have the outright lowest payroll in the league. In Season 17, it officially does.

“The organization has invested too much time and effort into him, and it’s still too early in Matvei Michkov’s career, to give up on him. But there is a risk here for Keith Jones, Danny Brière, Rick Tocchet, and the Flyers. They’ve already had one budding star — Cutter Gauthier — make it clear that he didn’t want to be here anymore. If things do end up going bad with Michkov, it will be fair to question whether the Flyers are handling their most talented prospects in the best of ways." —Sielski’s latest column examines whether the Flyers have a Michkov problem or if the Russian winger is like most young players and just experiencing growing pains that come with learning to be a pro.

What is the name of the architect who designed the 18-hole course at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square?

B) Donald Ross

We compiled today’s newsletter using reporting from Gina Mizell, Matt Breen, Jeff Neiburg, Marcus Hayes, Mike Sielski, David Murphy, Jonathan Tannenwald, Scott Lauber, Jackie Spiegel, Gustav Elvin, Gabriela Carroll, and Ariel Simpson.

By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

As always, thanks for reading, and have a wonderful Wednesday. Kerith will be back in your inbox with Thursday’s newsletter. — Bella