Morey needs time to install a Sixers fix
Daryl Morey was formally assigned to direct the Sixers’ basketball operations Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, he still had not produced a championship.
Any time now? “Look, I hope you will at least give me a few minutes to, like, be here,” Morey said, with half a laugh. “I’m still learning.”
He was learning the Sixers’ roster, their salary cap dynamics, their mood and their options. And while he was quick to roll out the very stump speech that the last couple of general managers, the last coach, the new coach and so many of the players have learned to recite, he did eventually reveal his vision for an ever-frustrated organization.
Eventually, there will be change. Until then, Morey will insist that Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid can win together, will tout the basketball charms of Tobias Harris and Al Horford, and will declare that the Sixers have the roster in place to spark a celebration at Frankford and Cottman.
It’s sort of a franchise pledge that must be recited.
Don’t ask.
“This is a roster that has championship aspirations and can win the championship,” Morey said. “You can’t ask for anything more. It’s been a dream come true to be here.”
They have $318,000,000 tied up in a center who is often unavailable and a point guard unwilling to shoot beyond 10 feet. They have two forwards with contracts they’d have trouble giving away, and they have support players who couldn’t create a stir at an autograph show. That’s what they have.
But they also have Doc Rivers, a great NBA coach, not a good one. And they have Morey, who never had a losing season in his 13 years as the general manager of the Houston Rockets. For the moment, anyway, Josh Harris believes that will be enough to do what hasn’t been done in that organization since 1983.
How else to explain the managing partner giving general manager Elton Brand a new, long-term contract? And how else to explain Brand saying after firing Brett Brown that he’d expect the new coach to win with the existing nucleus? There has been, and there remains, an unwritten policy in that organization that nothing should ever crack the Embiid-Simmons foundation. So Morey won’t crack it. At least not right away. But it took no more than 15 minutes of his video press conference Monday before letting it slip that the Sixers require a makeover.
The math.
Do it.
“Our championship team probably isn’t going to have the same exact players that we have right now,” Morey said. “Do I think that the players we have right now are very good and we can build around and continue to grow from there? I do believe that. Absolutely. But you know we are going to have to continue to improve. That falls under my job. But to know exactly what will work, at least give us to Day 2.”
He’ll have Day 2, and Day 3, and a reasonable cover of patience for a year, but not longer.
Morey is recognized for his commitment to analytics, and credited for being near the lead of the basketball trend toward a heavy reliance on the three-point shot. Embiid, though, is the most dominating inside force in the sport, and before he does anything impulsive, Morey will hope Rivers can win with a center-based attack.
“I used to get the question in Houston: ‘What would you do if you had Shaq?’” Morey said, referencing Shaquille O’Neal. “My answer was, ‘I’d give Shaq the ball 100 times a game.’ Joel is a talent on both ends. We played the way we played in Houston because that was the best way we had to utilize our talents. Doc knows how to win, and more than me, frankly. He is at least one ring ahead of me. And he’s going to figure out how best to use our talent.”
With Brand, Rivers and Morey all effectively saying the same thing since the end of the season, that’s where the 2020-21 Sixers are headed. With only the usual tweaks, they are going to commit to Embiid and Simmons until they decide it cannot work.
Spoiler alert: It’s not going to work.
That, then, is when Rivers and Morey, with the assistance of Brand, will begin the reconstruction.
“With Josh, Elton and Doc, we had a long meeting,” Morey said. “I start with championship probability and basically work backwards from there, over a time frame of one to three years, basically.
“We are currently not considered one of the favorites out there. I think we all feel very good about the roster. With a healthy Joel and Ben Simmons and a group that Doc is coaching, we feel like people are underrating the Sixers right now. But we have to go out and prove it. We have to figure out how our team looks compared to teams in the past that have won the championship. We have to figure out where we stack up.
“I know that’s high level. But that’s basically how I look at it every year.”
It’s not high level at all. It’s a basketball operations director looking at a roster and using a quick timeout.
If the Sixers were satisfied with the structure Brand helped put in place, they wouldn’t have hired Morey. They know he must make them different. And he will.
Just give it a few minutes.