The Philadelphia 76ers are reaching an agreement to have Daryl Morey become their new president of basketball operations.
What We Know:
- A deal is expected to be finalized this week, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. General manager Elton Brand will remain in his position and new head coach Doc Rivers is excited about the hire.
- The Sixers have long had their eye on Morey. They pursued him for the same position two years ago after former Sixers president Bryan Colangelo resigned for his social media scandal.
- Morey was a longtime executive with the Houston Rockets before leaving the team weeks ago. He constructed several iterations of the team with varying levels of success. Under his tenure, the Rockets held the longest active postseason streak in the league.
- It was reported that Morey wanted to step away from basketball for some time after leaving the Rockets, however, discussions with the Sixers escalated in recent days.
- The Sixers’ roster will be an entirely new animal for Morey, compared to the one he constructed in Houston. Morey was one of the earliest proponents of using analytics in team building, a practice that is much more common today because of him. His “small ball” Rockets were built to shoot threes and play great perimeter defense, and the tallest player in their rotation was just 6′ 8″.
- The Sixers are the polar opposite with a notable lack of three-point shooting and all of their best players being 6′ 8″ or taller. It will be interesting to see what kind of moves Morey will make to add shooting and complement Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid.
It will also be interesting to see if Morey will make the biggest move of all: trading Simmons or Embiid. Morey made several of these “swing for the fences” trades in Houston, acquiring James Harden, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook all via trade.
