Well, that didn’t take long. Daryl Morey walked away from the Houston Rockets just last week. This week? He’s apparently landed with the Philadelphia 76ers.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Morey is expected to join the 76ers as the team new team’s new president. Morey had reportedly been on Philly’s radar for a while, per Woj. They tried to lure him away from the Rockets two seasons ago but failed in their pursuit.
Now, he’s in house. The deal isn’t finalized yet, but it seems done. There is one quirk, though. Elton Brand — the Sixers’ current general manager — is staying on and he’s keeping his same role.
A deal is expected to be finalized in the next few days, and Sixers GM Elton Brand is expected to remain in his current position, sources said. https://t.co/fHb5Mds9yG
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 28, 2020
Morey feels like a great hire for the 76ers. But with Brand staying put, all of a sudden this feels like a lot.
There are so many cooks in the kitchen
So, let’s do the math on this thing. You’ve got Daryl Morey in as the team’s new president. You’ve got Elton Brand in as the team’s GM of two years after the Bryan Colangelo debacle. And you’ve got Doc Rivers who just signed a five-year deal with the team.
That’s a lot of long-term commitment to a lot of really powerful and opinionated voices.
It seems like Morey will have the ultimate say in how things will go as the team’s president, but Brand has been the GM and what they currently have is essentially the team he built. It’s reasonable to believe that he’ll be committed to trying to make it work — especially if his job depends on it.
On top of that, you have Rivers, who is a championship head coach and will absolutely have opinions about how the team should be run and how it should function. He doesn’t have decision making power on the roster, but I’d bet that he’s giving his two cents on every move they make.
That’s a lot. Especially for this Sixers team.
The 76ers need this to work
They can’t make any mistakes with this. This upcoming year is pivotal. In the 2018-19 season, they were a few bounces away from Kawhi Leonard’s shot falling off of the rim in Game 7 and potentially going to the Conference Finals.
Last season, they took a clear step back after and were beaten in the first round by the Boston Celtics. That’s why this move is being made. The Sixers have to avoid an early exit again.
But right now, they’re in a tough spot. They have a bunch of pieces that don’t really seem to fit well together, but they’ve already committed so much money to them.
Joel Embiid still has three years left to play on his five-year deal. Ben Simmons just signed a five-year extension last season that kicks in for the 2020-21 season. Tobias Harris is moving in to year two of his massive deal. They’ve got to make this thing work.
It’s up to Morey and company to figure out how to do that now. For Sixers fans’ sake, though, they’d better hope all of these sides can come together to make one vision.
If they can’t? It might be a disaster.
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