screengrab from RTRS YouTube
Daryl Morey was on the Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast to discuss the Ben Simmons for James Harden trade, convincing Ben to play if the trade didn’t happen, the 13-15% chance the Sixers now have winning the title, NFTs, and more:
Transcribed by Andrew Porter at 94WIP, Daryl said:
“I should have had a better relationship with Ben, I really believe that. That’s on me. I think knowing how sensitive he was to public comments that, that behooved us to be, just organizationally, more careful on that. I think it’s important to know your top players and their different spots where you have to pay attention. Yeah, I’d probably say those two. I mean I’m usually more upfront person with trades with players. I’ll be very upfront with them when things can happen. Like the timing on the first Harden trade [opportunity last season] got very challenging because it was in a time where trades normally don’t happen. Yeah, I could have done a lot better. I just focus on myself, mostly.”
Morey also said they had a plan to bring Ben back if they weren’t able to work out a trade:
“We had a whole plan of convincing Ben to come back to play,” Morey explained. “Who knows of how successful that would have been. Didn’t make a lot of sense to push on that option, until we had to do it.
“There was a lot of planning, what will be said, who will say it. What meetings, me trying to convince Ben to come back. I would have been doing whatever it took. There would have been a lot of persuasion attempted.”
I’m so happy Daryl got Harden. I mean look at this embrace, like his son just got back from war:
via Daryl Morey IG
He has an 8 ft. tall painting of a Fire & Ice James Harden in his apartment:
from RTRS YouTube
I can’t imagine the weight that was lifted off Daryl’s back when they called that trade into the league office. Now we can focus on the buyout market and Tyrese Maxey getting a Master’s degree from the James Harden school: