Daryl Morey made some poor decisions, but was he simply a victim of the Sixers’ circumstances?

I’ve never seen Josh Harris as happy as he was after beating the Celtics in Boston in Game 7 of the first round. He bounced out of the Sixers’ locker room and danced down the hallway, shaking hands and hugging everyone he saw, including, maybe, me.

I’ve never seen Josh Harris look more exhausted or beaten than he looked last Thursday, four days after the Knicks’ humiliating second-round sweep completed on the Sixers’ home court, and two days after Harris fired Sixers president Daryl Morey.

As Harris sat in front of a press corps Thursday that had witnessed him celebrating the day in November 2020, in a COVID-era virtual news conference, he announced the hiring of Morey, then witnessed him at the conference four years later when Morey somehow landed Paul George, Harris seemed more bewildered than ever as to how to get the team he bought in 2011 past the second round of the playoffs, where it hasn’t been since 2001.

After all, Harris had endorsed every major move Morey made, from trading holdout Ben Simmons for James Harden in 2022, re-signing Harden in 2022, trading holdout Harden in 2023, signing George, extending the contract of Joel Embiid in 2024, and drafting athletic VJ Edgecombe last June instead of taking a more polished player.

And yes, Harris said, when popular reserve Jared McCain was traded at the deadline in February, he was on board.

After the Knicks won Game 4 by 30 points and fans called for Harris to sell the team, he got off board very quickly. He appointed Bob Myers as interim president to search for Morey’s replacement in addition to Myers’ duties as president of Harris’ umbrella company, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, and Myers will also be more involved with cleaning up Morey’s mess.

The most telling comments Thursday from Harris and Myers concerned less the principal players and more the supporting cast. If any group of players lost Morey his job, it was shooting guard Quentin Grimes, forward Dominick Barlow, and center Adam Bona, reserves who contributed little against a deep, balanced Knicks team.

Considering that most of the teams that currently succeed in the playoffs have a similar wealth of contributors, Myers was asked if a team built around three stars like Embiid, George, and Tyrese Maxey could win in today’s NBA.

“Depth may be more important than it’s ever been,” Myers replied.

Especially when the Big Three don’t always show up — literally.

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It’s disingenuous today to cast the acquisition of George by the Sixers in 2024 as anything but a coup. George settled on the Sixers after the Clippers refused to re-sign him beyond three years. The Sixers gave him a fourth year, $212 million total, and that was that.

Yes, George had a troubling injury history, but he was coming off his ninth All-Star selection having played 74 games, by far the most in his five seasons as a Clipper. Had Morey been able to sign George and declined to do so, he surely would have been roasted on a spit.

As it turned out, injuries and a 25-game suspension under the league’s drug policy limited George, now 36, to just 78 games the past two seasons, and he disappeared at times in the playoffs, averaging just 14.5 points against the Knicks.

Early in 2024, Embiid had undergone a second left knee surgery. He returned for the playoffs with mixed results, then insisted on playing in the Olympics — a decision Morey could not block. Embiid then showed up to training camp out of shape and still hobbling, but doctors employed by both the Sixers and independently assured Morey that Embiid would round into form.

So, Morey signed Embiid to a max deal through 2029, the last season a player option. This turned out to be unfortunate, but, at the time, in was inevitable. There’s no way Harris was going to let his biggest attraction leave after one more season. Harris is a private equity maven, and Embiid, healthy or not, makes him money.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid injury tracker

In 2024-25, Embiid’s conditioning and pain tolerance hindered the process of his return, but after another, unspecified, procedure in 2025, Embiid’s knee has responded as hoped. Just not in time to save Morey’s job.

It didn’t help that, while regaining better use of his left knee, Embiid suffered other injuries, among them to his right knee, ankle, shin, and an oblique. This amplified the lack of availability that is the hallmark of an otherwise impressive career. He is 32, he missed four of the team’s 11 playoff games, and has missed, on average, 50 of 82 regular-season games in the past three seasons.

Embiid has been available for about half the games in his 12-year career. His continued employment in Philadelphia ultimately falls at Morey’s feet, but, frankly, there isn’t much that Morey could do to avoid him.

McCain, a popular sophomore guard who dealt with knee and thumb injuries, was the lightning rod of the 2025-26 season. He is a one-trick pony — a small, slow, defensive liability who, when healthy, can shoot like blazes when teammates get him open shots.

Sixers coach Nick Nurse was understandably reluctant to play him after a meniscus injury further slowed him down. McCain shot 34.4% from the field, including just 31.9% of his three-pointers in the first 26 games of his second season. But he got hot in early January, shooting 55.6% from the field, including 57.1% from three, so Morey decided to trade him to Oklahoma City for a first-round pick in 2026 and three future second-round picks.

“I am quite confident we were selling high,” Morey said after the deal.

» READ MORE: For Jared McCain, Philly and the Sixers will always feel like a ‘first love’

McCain played well as a reserve for the Thunder down the stretch, and has done so as well, if sporadically, in what looks like a second title run for OKC, but that’s not the whole issue.

The other part of the story is that Morey failed to flip those picks for anything at all for the Sixers’ stretch run. He said no deal materialized that made sense, but the perception, vocalized by Embiid himself, was that Morey was keeping the Sixers below the luxury-tax level, ostensibly to placate Harris.

Harris on Thursday refuted that notion: “The front office has the green light to go over the luxury tax. There’s no issue with the luxury tax.” Myers agreed and said he wouldn’t work with ownership leery of exceeding the tax.

Harris and Myers emphasized that the McCain deal did not spell Morey’s doom.

“We OK’d it,” Harris said. “We don’t know the outcome of that trade.”

“That trade isn’t done,” Myers agreed.

The only thing that is done is Morey’s time in Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Sources: Josh Harris ‘desperately’ wants Bob Myers to be Sixers’ full-time president. Myers is not keen.

There were lots of things Morey did that I didn’t agree with.

I didn’t agree with the pursuit of Harden, and I certainly didn’t agree with the effort to re-sign him. I was glad Morey didn’t offer him a max deal to stay. However, Harden in the past three seasons has averaged more than 73 games per season with 21.0 points and 8.4 assists, far better output than George or Embiid. And Harden this year helped lead the Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference finals, somewhere the Sixers haven’t been in 25 years. Maybe Morey should have given Harden a max deal after all.

I didn’t agree with giving Embiid a contract extension in 2024. In fact, I contended that Morey should have tried to trade Embiid for Giannis Antetokounmpo at the most recent deadline, when Embiid was playing well, even if it cost the Sixers the services of Edgecombe.

» READ MORE: Sixers boss Daryl Morey should trade Joel Embiid for Giannis Antetokounmpo — while he still can

I didn’t agree with the 2024 pursuit and signing of George, who at that point had missed as many games as Embiid had in the previous handful of seasons.

I also didn’t agree with drafting Edgecombe over former Rutgers star Ace Bailey. In hindsight, if Morey had done that, I would have been 100% in favor of firing him.

As it stands, I think Morey should have gotten another year to see if Embiid, Maxey, George, and Edgecombe could consistently deliver the magic that made Harris so happy in the hallways of the TD Garden after Game 7 against the Celtics.

Alas.