Daryl Morey’s tenure in Philadelphia has come to an end.
After six seasons as the team’s president of basketball operations, Morey will no longer have that post after meeting with owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer on Tuesday, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Sharania adds that head coach Nick Nurse will be back for his fourth season.
Morey’s time with the Sixers started on a terrific note. He was hired ahead of the 2020-21 season, inheriting a very flawed roster which featured Al Horford and Josh Richardson. During the 2020 NBA Draft, Morey flipped both players and turned them into Danny Green and Seth Curry. He also drafted Tyrese Maxey at pick No. 21 and made two sold selections in the second round in Isaiah Joe and Paul Reed.
The regular season was a resounding success, with Doc Rivers leading the group to the East’s top seed. We unfortunately know how that ended with the team losing to the Atlanta Hawks in seven games. Ben Simmons, who was in trade rumors for James Harden earlier in the season, struggled mightily during the playoffs. Both Rivers and Joel Embiid made postgame comments that didn’t sit well with Simmons, ultimately leading to a holdout.
While many in Philadelphia grew antsy while Morey held on to Simmons, it worked out well with the team finally acquiring Harden from the Brooklyn Nets. Harden showed some lingering effects from a previous hamstring issue and Embiid suffered yet another orbital bone fracture in the first round. The Sixers lost to the Miami Heat in six games in the second round.
Arguably the best team Morey assembled here and the one that came the closest to finally getting over the second-round hump was in 2022-23. With Harden here the entire season and Tyrese Maxey coming into his own, the team was one of the hottest in the NBA entering postseason play. After sweeping the Brooklyn Nets, they went up against the rival Boston Celtics. Again, it was another series that ended in disappointment as the team blew a 3-2 series lead, getting crushed in Game 7 in Boston.
Morey made the decision to move on from Rivers and hire Nurse. In that offseason, we got another holdout as Harden and Morey’s soured to an irredeemable degree. To start the 2023-24 season, the Sixers looked almost unstoppable with Embiid somehow outplaying his MVP pace and Maxey well on his way to earning the league’s Most Improved Player award. The team was beset by another Embiid meniscus tear and beaten by the New York Knicks in six games in the first round.
In trading Harden, Morey began his boldest strategy while running the Sixers. All the players he took back in the trade with the LA Clippers were on expiring contracts. Morey’s plan was to keep his books clean for the offseason so the team could offer a big-time free agent a max contract. That player wound up being Paul George. Morey also signed Embiid to a three-year max extension.
We don’t need to rehash the 2024-25 season — living through it was enough. The only good to come out of it was the emergence of rookie Jared McCain and the team tanking to close the season, which allowed them to select VJ Edgecombe third overall in the 2025 NBA Draft.
The Sixers bounced back this season, with both Embiid and George playing more and at a much higher level. Maxey took an All-NBA leap and Edgecombe finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. Despite pulling off an improbable comeback from a 3-1 deficit and finally knocking off the hated Celtics in the playoffs,
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