Sixers

Daryl Morey Says Sixers Wanted to Use Jared McCain Trade Return on an Ensuing Move, but “No Deal Materialized”

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Feb 6th, 2026 · 12:26 PM EST

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Daryl Morey spoke to the media on Friday afternoon following a trade deadline in which the Sixers traded Jared McCain and Eric Gordon while adding nobody to the team, unless you want to count the two-way contract conversion of Dominick Barlow.

Naturally, the fan and media reaction was that the Sixers offloaded a couple of players to duck the luxury tax.

Morey admitted straight up, in his opening statement, that they were hoping to turn the McCain picks into a separate deadline move:

“Obviously the big move was with Jared. Because we’re playing well, we were trying to upgrade the team and add to the team now. That was goal number one. Obviously no deal materialized, including using the picks we got from the Jared deal. That’s why we did that move a little early. We were trying to reuse those draft picks to add now. We do feel like this deal sets us up better in the future but we were looking to add now and nothing materialized.”

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“We were trying to add to the team. We didn’t find a deal that made sense, that we thought could move the needle on our ability to win this year. The CBA pressures were felt up and down the league. To do the Barlow move, to get him on a good long-term deal because of the first apron, we had to do moves to create that opportunity. But that wasn’t the primary reason for the Jared Deal; we see Jared as someone who is more likely to help a team in the future. I think that’s fairly obvious. I think he has a bright future. We thought that the draft picks we got will help us more in the future and could have helped us this deadline, in terms of the picks we got were offered to many teams and nothing materialized for a player we thought could move the needle with those picks now. We feel like going forward those picks will help us build the team in the future, in a good way.”

Regardless, they didn’t get any better. They were 29-21 and 5th place in the Eastern Conference at the time and didn’t improve at the deadline. If the right deal isn’t there, it’s not there, and you can’t make it appear out of nowhere, but we don’t even know what was offered, or to whom. So we evaluate what ultimately happened, which is converting a player into draft picks and trading another player to convert a two-way guy.

Make no mistake, they got a good return for McCain, but, once again, you can’t put those four picks out on the floor to help the Sixers win now.