PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers made quite a few moves at the deadline designed to help them immediately on the floor and position themselves for future moves.
One of those moves was trading Patrick Beverley to the Milwaukee Bucks for Cam Payne and a second-round pick. Beverley quickly became a fan-favorite in Philadelphia due to his hard-nosed play and his willingness to do whatever it took to win games on a nightly basis.
After the trade, Beverley stated President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey told him on Jan. 27 the Sixers weren’t going to trade him. The conversation would have taken place in Denver during their recent road trip.
Obviously, this isn’t the first time a player has accused Morey of telling a lie. There was the big James Harden fiasco in the summer, and there are now questions about Morey’s relationship with Beverley.
“I think my relationship with players and player-agents and people in the league is as high as any in the league,” said Morey. “I think Pat — I got a great relationship with him—he clarified what he said after he said it. I think if I was up here with Pat, it would be a very positive conversation.”
To Morey’s point, yes, Beverley tweeted it was all love to Philadelphia as he moves on from the Sixers to the Bucks. At the point of the deadline, things changed from that day in Denver and Morey had to make a move in order to get his team closer to a title.
“Obviously, what he’s referring to, yeah,” Morey added. “For sure, there were no plans at that point. It didn’t even seem on the radar, but we thought this was the best way to build a team. We saw his minutes going down and we thought it was best for him to be able to be in a place where he was gonna play a bigger role on a team and, here, we saw that role diminishing.”
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