Daryl Morey was gifted a contract extension from the Sixers despite repeated failures

The team still can't get past the second round and the deals he's done and passed up have been poor, but the team's riding high now, and Josh Harris needs someone to run the team in his absence.

The Sixers have extended Daryl Morey through the 2027-28 season. But was that reward of faith premature?Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Marcus Hayes | Columnist

Published Dec. 15, 2023, 2:16 p.m. ET

I like Daryl Morey. He’s smart and he’s brave and he’s steadfast.

He’s also made two very big mistakes regarding marquee players, and the Sixers still can’t get out of the second round of the playoffs. For that, he’s being … rewarded?

Morey and the Sixers have agreed on a three-year extension that runs through the 2027-28 season. He signed for five years near the beginning of the 2020-2021 season, a few weeks after, in typical bass-ackwards style, the Sixers hired coach Doc Rivers.

Extending Morey isn’t a bad idea, but it’s wildly unnecessary. So, why do it?

Because this is the act of an absentee owner further shirking his responsibilities as the caretaker of the franchise. Shirking is pretty much all private equit-ist Josh Harris has done since he bought the team and, catastrophically, traded what equated to four first-round picks — Andre Iguodala, Maurice Harkless, Nikola Vučević and a future first-rounder — for Andrew Bynum in 2012. Bynum never played for the team.

Morey is being rewarded for failure. He was hired to push the Sixers past the second round of the playoffs. In that, he failed three times. Parse this however you want, but the team is no more successful and no better off now than it was when he arrived $36 million ago.

Then again, I guess they’re no worse off, either.

He’s done nothing to get himself fired, per se. Also, he just hired a new coach. Also, he finally established a viable group of bench players — but he wasn’t supposed to do all this in Year 4. He was supposed to do it in Year 1.

In the interim: Morey reportedly declined to trade Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris for Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield in January 2022.

Morey eventually traded Simmons for James Harden. Morey then extended Harden for two years after the 2022 playoffs.

Morey also oversaw Simmons’ bad-faith holdout entering the 2021-22 season. He found himself in exactly the same situation with Harden two years later. He clearly has problems communicating with displeased players.

As it turns out, not trading Simmons for Haliburton was a mistake. Trading Simmons for Harden also was a mistake. I fully supported him in those moments, but Morey makes $12 million a year to make these decisions, and I don’t. It’s much more acceptable for me to be wrong about it than for him.

Clearly the Sixers want to keep Morey aboard, and that’s never been more important than now. Harris is fully distracted by his other investments, chief among them the train wreck that is the Washington Commanders. He has entrusted Morey with absolute power.

And what has he done lately with that power?

Morey signed 37-year-old P.J. Tucker to a three-year, $33 million deal, which, to no one’s surprise, was both a waste of money and minutes.

Morey then made the decision to fire Rivers, about which I am indifferent; Rivers made Joel Embiid an MVP and created Tyrese Maxey out of whole cloth, and I would’ve liked to have seen how he used Maxey and Embiid together, but they’re in good hands.

That’s because Morey also hired Nick Nurse, who was by far the best coach available on the market. Rivers has become a fine TV analyst.

Morey eventually traded Harden essentially for Nick Batum and Robert Covington, which also facilitated the exit of Tucker, who, again, is cooked and frustrated with his lack of minutes in Los Angeles. He did so after Harden held out while Morey begged him to return.

Harden refused, and Morey dealt him, and, by accident, it has worked out for the best. Maxey is thriving, Embiid is better without the ball-hogging Beard, and the Sixers finally have suitable role players and a deep bench.

This is especially true because Morey signed Kelly Oubre to a $2 million minimum deal. Oubre has been a revelation. But be careful you don’t credit Morey too much with finding unwanted players.