Overpayments, questionable trades and one ugly feud: Daryl Morey’s biggest missteps with the Sixers

The 76ers’ dysfunction predated Daryl Morey. The franchise’s fifth lead executive in less than a decade, Morey was hired as president of basketball operations in the fall of 2020 to solve a math problem that had stumped some of the smartest people in basketball.

The MIT graduate and Sloan Sports Analytics Conference architect was one of the best people available for the job. He had his moments with the Sixers, successfully extracting Ben Simmons and James Harden from the roster after trade demands, selecting Jared McCain (before trading him) and VJ Edgecombe in the draft, and adding starter Kelly Oubre Jr., on a veteran’s minimum deal.

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Yet many of Morey’s best transactions were book ended by baffling decisions that hurt the team or mortgaged its future. Morey was dismissed on Tuesday as those instances piled up alongside the Sixers’ continued failures to advance beyond the second round.

Let’s take a look back at some of the missteps that could have played a part in Morey’s firing after six seasons.

The summer of 2024 could be pointed to as the moment that spelled the end of Morey’s tenure in Philly. The Sixers were already pot committed to Joel Embiid, the former MVP who was fresh off a torn meniscus in his left knee and was still owed two years and more than $100 million. Embiid only played in 39 games in 2023-24 because of knee problems, yet Morey and the Sixers rewarded him with a three-year, $193 million extension that conceivably kept him in Philly through the 2027-28 season, including a $67.2 million player option in the final year.

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The deal has not aged well. Embiid struggled to return from the injury and played in only 19 games last season before being shut down in February as the Sixers dropped into the lottery. Embiid called the 2025-26 season a “success” because he had finally figured out how to handle his knee issues. But he suffered a number of ailments as he played 38 games and the Sixers were ousted by the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs. Embiid suffered an oblique strain, a shin stress reaction and underwent an emergency appendectomy. He’s 32 years old and his new deal will finally kick in next season.

Paul George serves as the prototype for a generation of players entering the league. His combination of offensive skill and defensive prowess also played a part in the movement to three-and-D players wings. But when he entered free agency in the summer of 2024 — again — he had endured a litany of injuries and was having a hard time getting his hometown Clippers to agree to a full max contract. Morey stepped in with a four-year, $211 million offer.

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George was shut down because of knee injuries after playing 41 games in 2024-25 and missed 25 games for suspension in an up-and-down 2025-26 season. George did perform better this postseason, particularly in his team’s improbable comeback win against the Boston Celtics in the first round. But he ran out of gas too often against the Knicks and showed signs of his age in the Sixers’ second-round sweep. George will be paid $54.1 million next season and almost certainly opt into a $56.5 million player option in 2027-28. Whoever the Sixers hire to replace Morey will likely have to get creative to move George off the books, or commit to two more seasons with George and Embiid as their highest-paid players.

This is a fresh misstep that Embiid tried to preempt. Prior to this year’s trade deadline, Embiid took to the postgame podium and implored his team to keep the roster intact. He didn’t want to lose a valuable teammate because of the franchise’s long-held commitment to ducking the luxury tax. The Sixers didn’t heed that warning and traded Jared McCain to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was a startling about-face on McCain, who was a Rookie of the Year candidate before his 2024-25 season ended with a meniscus tear in his left knee. Morey made matters worse when he said the Sixers were “selling high” on McCain. Those words immediately drew criticism that has only grown louder since McCain found success in Oklahoma City, averaging 10.1 points and shooting 39.1% from three-point range in the regular season. That success has extended to the postseason, where he’s shot 54.2% from three and scored 18 points in 18 minutes in Game 2 against the Lakers.

Morey believed Harden could be a featured player and paid up to get him to Houston, where the former Rockets president of basketball operations built a perennial playoff team around his analytical approach and Harden’s offensive brilliance. Morey dipped back in that well when he joined the Sixers and was charged with offloading disgruntled star Ben Simmons. But this wasn’t the same Harden. He was entering his 14th season and had recently demanded out of Houston, then Brooklyn.

Harden was in town for less than two years before he asked out of Philly, calling Morey “a liar” after he wasn’t granted a speedy trade. The star guard had played nice with the Sixers and took a pay cut to create space for the signings of Danuel House and P.J. Tucker, a move that led to a tampering fine that cost the Sixers second-round draft picks in 2023 and 2024. Morey was back in the same situation he’d inherited with Simmons, as Harden skipped media day and sporadically showed up for practice until he was traded to the Clippers.