Daryl Morey’s message to Joel Embiid and Sixers fans: Trust the Process

Last week, with the trade deadline looming, Joel Embiid made a public plea to the 76ers’ front office. He begged them to ignore the luxury tax for once, and to get him the help he needs for what has turned into an unlikely impending playoff run.

“In the past we’ve been, I guess, ducking the tax,” Embiid said last week. “So, hopefully, we think about improving. Because I think we have a chance.”

Embiid made this plea knowing that Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, and Embiid himself cannot sustain their high level of play if they have to maintain such a high number of minutes.

Embiid’s plea coincided with the 25-game drug suspension of fellow veteran and max-salary player Paul George, who, like Embiid, was rounding into form after more than a year of debilitating injury issues. George will not be eligible to return until only 10 games remain in the season.

Embiid’s wishes made sense.

Embiid’s wishes were not granted.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey, Sixers teammates describe emotions watching Jared McCain traded at deadline: ‘It was a hard day’

In fact, not only did the Sixers fail to make a significant move to improve the roster, they actually got worse: They traded last year‘s first-round pick, sharpshooter Jared McCain, for future draft picks.

So, despite asking, and asking nicely, Embiid got no help.

Daryl Morey’s message to Embiid:

Trust the process.

“I think we all wanted to add to the team, and, you know, we took his comments to heart,” the Sixers’ president said Friday.

And?

“We were trying to add to the team,” Morey said, “and we didn’t find a deal that made sense — one that we thought could move the needle on our ability to win this year.”

So: Still processing.

Maxey is the team’s most important player, so he was never a trade consideration, but Morey acknowledged that both Edgecombe and Embiid were essentially untouchable, too.

McCain was not untouchable. His departure provided salary-cap relief. Further, though, Morey painted McCain as a long-term project who might not develop faster than whomever the Sixers draft in June with the first-round pick the Sixers got in the trade.

That seemed harsh. True, but harsh.

As a rookie, McCain averaged 15.3 points in 23 games mostly as a bench player last season, which was cut short by injury. More injury issues limited his participation this season, and he was averaging just 6.6 points. Morey traded him Wednesday to Oklahoma City for the Thunder’s first-round pick in June, as well as three future second-round picks.

McCain simply was not in the Sixers’ immediate plans, and Morey insisted that they would not have gotten a better return on McCain in the offseason.

Morey also said the Sixers hoped to immediately flip some of the draft picks they received in the McCain deal and improve the team thus.

There were no upgrades out there.

» READ MORE: Trading Jared McCain is a big risk, unless something bigger is in play

The emergence of Dominic Barlow, who is starting in place of George, and the continued strong bench play of guard Quentin Grimes convinced him that there were no players available for a sensible asking price that would appreciably improve the Sixers.

Certainly, there were no players that would have warranted the Sixers exceeding the luxury tax, though Sixers ownership had given him permission to spend whatever he needed to spend.

“If we had found an [addition] and we were going to end up higher [than the tax], we would have ended up above it. We’ve done it several times,” Morey said. “We didn’t see something that did.”

So: Still processing.

The catastrophic, scorched-earth strategy of rebuilding the Sixers, begun in 2013, eventually became known as “The Process.” Trusting in it became the mantra of both the franchise and a cult of devoted, long-suffering fans for whom no sacrifice was too outrageous.

Embiid then hijacked the phrase as his nickname in 2016, after he’d missed his first two NBA seasons due to injury. Personalizing the phrase was an ostentatious act, but, considering the nature of his turbulent career, Embiid has come to embody it.

Now, 13 years and five decision-makers later — Sam Hinkie, Bryan Colangelo, Brett Brown, Elton Brand, and Morey — the Sixers must ask their best player, the last vestige of The Process, to spend one of his twilight seasons hoping the current chapter of The Process has a happy ending.

“This team, we think, can make a deep playoff run and is one of the top few teams in the East,” Morey said.

He’s right.

The Process has a window. It’s a small window, like that triangular side window on old cars, but it’s a window nevertheless.

As of Friday night the Sixers stood sixth in a sagging Eastern Conference. Injury has diminished both the Celtics, who won the NBA title two years ago, and the Pacers, conference champs last season. The Pistons are in first place, 4½ games ahead of the flawed Knicks and Celtics, but nobody really believes in them. The Sixers are just one game behind the Raptors, who have five players averaging double figures, and 1½ games behind the Cavaliers, who, despite having won seven of their last eight games, were so desperate that they traded for — wait for it — 36-year-old James Harden.

As predicted when Celtics star Jayson Tatum and Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton suffered severe injuries in the 2025 playoffs, the East is weak and vulnerable. These are adjectives that often have been used to describe the 76ers during The Process.

Now, though, the Sixers have won five of their last six games. They’ve ridden Maxey’s MVP campaign, Edgecombe’s Rookie of the Year campaign, and what would be Embiid’s Comeback Player of the Year campaign if the NBA had such an award.

Can they keep it up? We won’t know for months whether the conference is so bad that even the Sixers can win it.

So, until then: Still processing.

“I believe in myself, so I’m always going to believe I have a chance, as long as I’m healthy,” Embiid told reporters Thursday night, after McCain had arrived in Oklahoma and no new player had joined the Sixers on the road in Los Angeles. “I believe that we can beat anybody. We hold down the fort until [George] comes back. He’s really needed. He’s irreplaceable.”

He’s not in demand, though. League sources indicated that no team was interested in trading for George. No surprise there. At 35, not only is George suspended, but he is also owed almost $110 million over the next two seasons, and he has an injury history as bad as Embiid’s.

That’s OK with the Sixers. George, when not taking banned substances, is probably still very good. Morey adores George, especially as a defensive difference-maker.

“We really like what Paul gives us,” Morey said.

Well, he won’t give them anything for the next 21 games. Which, for the moment, is exactly what the Sixers will get from the 2026 trade deadline.

Process that.