“If everything sets up well, we’ll have a younger, more dynamic roster around a healthy Joel, Tyrese and Paul,” Morey said. “I never felt like Coach had a healthy literally one game with all three of ’em. I know they played some games together, but they didn’t finish all of ’em and even the ones where it was like their first game back. It was tough … for me personally it was obviously the toughest season of my career, and I’ll just say personally I will spend every waking hour figuring out how turn this team around going into next season.”
The Sixers’ disastrous year won’t lead to changes at the top. Following the team’s season-ending loss to the Bulls on Sunday, president of basketball operations Daryl Morey said he and coach Nick Nurse will return next season, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps reports.
Morey divulged that news during a postgame press conference.
“We expect more. We really feel for the fans who put their heart and soul into this team, and we know we’ve let you down,” Morey said. “Ownership gave us the resources to make aggressive moves this offseason to put a championship roster around Joel [Embiid] and Tyrese [Maxey] and sometimes those aggressive moves don’t initially work out, but we feel good about [them].”
Morey hoarded salary-cap space to make a big splash last offseason and landed the biggest free agent on the market, Paul George. The front office also added Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon, Guerschon Yabusele, and Andre Drummond while re-signing Maxey, KJ Martin, Kyle Lowry, and Kelly Oubre Jr. with sights on a championship.
Instead, the season disintegrated due to injuries. Promising rookie Jared McCain went down early and the team’s “big three” barely had any time to develop chemistry. Embiid was limited to 19 games and eventually underwent another knee procedure. George only appeared in half of Philadelphia’s 82 games and Maxey was limited to 52 appearances. They suited up together in just 15 games.
“In my opinion when you have an MVP-level talent, you need to make aggressive moves to upgrade around that talent in that window,” Morey said. “That’s what we did last offseason, and we feel good about it going forward. I think it’s such a unique thing to have a player of that caliber. Are we somewhat indexed to talented players who are a little bit more injured? Yes, but that’s why we need to have a younger, deeper roster on them and then have them healthy going into the playoffs next year.”
Despite Embiid’s knee issues and George’s multitude of injuries in recent seasons, Morey expressed optimism that they’ll be “100%” next season.
Given their contractual obligations, the Sixers can only hope that’s the case. Embiid signed a monstrous three-year extension in September worth nearly $193MM that runs through the 2028/29 season with a player option. George has three years and more than $162MM remaining on his contract, which also includes a player option.
Morey says he’ll retool one of the oldest rosters in the league. The Sixers will hold onto their first-round pick if it’s in the top six. Otherwise, it will be conveyed to Oklahoma City.
Morey should be fired, he has been awful at his job. It’s the sixers however and I’m not surprised he is staying
If you are going to call out Morey for his mistakes you need to give him credit for his successes too. He drafted Maxey and McCain with late firsts. He got good value for Simmons and Harden. He had a steal of a trade with Grimes. I’m not going to pretend he’s great and wouldn’t deserve to be fired but he’s not done terribly.
all of that gets cancelled out by his extension for joel and contract for mr podcast
That’s a really dumb mindset. By that logic you can’t say he‘s bad either because all the bad is cancelled out by the good. I’d rather criticize the bad and call it out and give props to the good.
Fire Morey, just for Embiid’s contract extension and signing Podcast P …… everyone and their mother has long known that Jojo and Podcast’s knees are washed and both never shows up in any meaningful playoff game.
Firing Morey doesn’t really make sense, it is not like a new GM could come in and overhaul the team. the roster is more or less set for the next 2 years, no one is trading for Embiid or George on those contracts and even Maxey’s stock is down right now. They will make a few small moves around the edges but otherwise they are running it back next year and hoping for better health.
Morey is very bad at his job though.
Yeah, but a new GM might not make more mistakes, which Morey is about to do.
Just watch, he’ll figure out a way to make thing worse.
Told you about Morey when he got hired. Not a basketball mind. He is a counter. Should be an accountant. Not running the team.
Phily votes to continue having cancer, interesting.
The way they run this disastrous organization, they will lose at the ping pong balls too and lose that pick
Naw silver won’t do that. If it was Hinkie then yes
This is great news!
the rest of the league appreciates this decision by the sixers
Insane
Trust the PROCESSed cheese.
The 2025-2026 Philadelphia 76ers: ‘Feel the Corruption, Trust the Corruption!’
They should call upper management The Good Ol’ Boys Club’.. I know it’s not original but yeah… Morey is clearly a top member.
I can’t believe my comments get deleted. I almost paid to join. I will pray for you and you site my last view.
I’m a Knicks fan so I don’t really care about the Sixers, but Morey is a bum. But they’re doing the right thing by keeping Nick Nurse. He’s a terrific coach.