Daryl Morey on failed James Harden trade to Sixers: ‘I think it was the right bet. We’d do the same thing.’

In the end, Daryl Morey would do it all again, even though it cost him his best friend.

Morey’s most significant act in his three years as 76ers president was trading the boycotting Ben Simmons for James Harden in 2022. Morey’s second most significant act: trading the boycotting Harden, who now considers Morey a “liar,” to his hometown Clippers for four expiring contracts and a bunch of draft picks he’ll probably flip for a decent sixth man.

Harden, a 10-time All-Star and former MVP, was as much a disappointment on the court as he was off it; his conditioning suspect, his defense nonexistent, his once prodigious offensive repertoire dulled by age and rule changes. He played like the worn-out thirtysomething he was, and, as a flawed point guard, he was unable to modify his game to accommodate teammates Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Tobias Harris.

Still, said Morey, he was worth the risk.

“With the information we had at the time, it was a very good trade,” Morey insisted. Simmons had backed the Sixers against a wall, so Morey believed he had to gamble: “You have to take a bet. That bet won’t be perfect because you’re exiting a tough situation.

“This bet, I thought, was very good. I continue to think it was the right bet.”

Morey admitted to reflection, but, as you might imagine, he exonerated himself.

“Were there any different paths to take? I don’t see any, knowing all the things that were available,” Morey said. “I think it was the right bet, and we’d do the same thing.”

Which tells you all you need to know about Daryl Morey. He traded one flawed headache for another flawed headache. The trade was a mistake. A huge mistake. Morey’s mistake.

He wasn’t alone. Many of us believed Harden could call upon his scoring genius often enough to win big games. Many of us hoped that, after 12½ seasons of playing street-ball point guard, he’d be able, under the guidance of Doc Rivers, to learn the new tricks of running an offense that did not involve him dribbling for 12 seconds, traveling, then firing up a prayer.

Many of us were wrong, just like Morey. The difference, of course, is that we’re not paid $12 million to be right about these sorts of decisions. And we’re not blinded by allegiance.

Morey built the Rockets around Harden in Harden’s prime. Their eight years together in Houston one day will land Harden in the Hall of Fame. Harden took a pay cut to play for the Sixers in the 2022-23 season, but did so in anticipation of a lucrative, long-term extension after the season ended. However, Morey said that when Harden sensed the Sixers weren’t going to break the bank — and no firm offer was ever made — Harden opted in to his $35.6 million contract for this season and demanded a trade. Morey agreed. When the trade didn’t happen fast enough for Harden’s liking, he swore to never play for Morey again.

It was a breathtaking betrayal.

Now that Harden has what he wants, does he still despise Morey? Morey painted the relationship as ... healing.

“He chose to handle things certain ways I wouldn’t have,” Morey said. “I had a long run with him. ... I think this will just be a blip. Something we won’t remember when we’re at James’ Hall of Fame induction.”

Morey thinks he’ll be invited to Harden’s Hall of Fame induction. Adorable, if, apparently, delusional. Especially since, when pressed, Morey wouldn’t confirm if the pair had even spoken since the insult, much less reconciled.

“I honestly feel like that’s between us,” Morey said, uncharacteristically peeved. “I’m going to say it’s not germane.”

Impressive vocabulary, but evasive reply. Clearly, a rift remains. Sad.

Morey’s first big idea when he landed in Philly in 2020 was to trade Simmons for Harden, which didn’t happen at the time. After that season, when Simmons decided he hated Philly and Harden decided he hated weirdo teammate Kyrie Irving and the Nets, a deal was doable, then done, in February 2022.

Morey and Harden represented hoops in Houston from 2012-20, then reconnected in South Philly for two more empty postseason runs. The Sixers’ collapse against the Celtics in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, when they blew a fourth-quarter lead in Game 6 and got blown out in Game 7, will sully their legacies as Sixers.

The Sixers went no further with Harden than they’d gotten without him. They spent $45 million to stay in neutral. They wasted two years of Embiid’s prime. They stunted the growth of Maxey, a dynamic guard.

Morey on Wednesday continued to insist that the Sixers got closer to advancing than they’d recently gotten, which is disingenuous, since the Sixers had also lost in seven games of the conference semifinals to the Hawks in 2021, Morey’s first season, and to the Raptors in 2019. But then, accuracy isn’t always an ally.

Morey spent 22 minutes Wednesday afternoon addressing the state of the Sixers as they reinvent themselves around Embiid for the sixth time in seven years: from JJ Redick & Co. in 2017-18, to Jimmy Butler and Harris in 2018-19; to Al Horford and “bully ball” the next season; to Ben Simmons’ regression and choke in 2020-21; to the Harden Experience the last season and a half; to the Maxey reality in which they now live.

It remains to be seen whether shedding Harden will be more fruitful than acquiring him was. None of the four players the Sixers received — 34-year-old Nic Batum, 32-year-old Process-product Robert Covington, bench forward KJ Martin, or 34-year-old Philly native Marcus Morris — projects as much of a contributor.

In fact, the subtraction of 38-year-old offensive clog P.J. Tucker might be the best immediate effect of the trade, since it will give Kelly Oubre a chance to claim more minutes.

The other, most obvious result is that Maxey will get the chance to prove whether he can develop into a point guard who can run a team, or if he’s just a scoring machine who cannot be trusted with the ball.

The trade carries plenty of other implications.

In the long term, the Sixers will realize as much as $60 million in cap space. They’ll be able to dangle draft picks to fortify a roster thin on viable, versatile NBA veterans. Morey, of course, congratulated himself on the deal, which, to no one’s surprise, met the secret parameters he’d established in the summer:

“We set a bar in June when James requested the trade,” Morey said, and compared the package that sent Jrue Holiday from the Blazers to the Celtics last month. “The Clippers met that price.”

Hurrah.

» READ MORE: The key to the James Harden trade isn’t who the Sixers got. It’s who they already had: Tyrese Maxey.

A less tangible result of the trade concerns the absence of distraction about whether Harden would return and how that return might affect the team.

Morey said Harden had never been a disruption. This seems impossible. Harden reported late and missed most of training camp. He played in zero preseason games. He then bolted for 10 days, returned the day before the first game, then tried to bogart his way onto the team plane as it prepared to take off for the opener in Milwaukee.

Yeah, that’s not distracting. At. All.

On this point, Morey clearly contradicted himself: “I love that now everyone gets to focus on our game Thursday,” he said, as we continue to “see how Tyrese flourishes.”

Because, since the ill-fated day of his arrival, the focus has always been on Harden, the most decorated player since Allen Iverson.

To be fair, it’s hard to blame Morey for garbling the message.

After all, he’s just lost his best friend.