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Why Daryl Morey is Right to Continue the Practice of “Insanity”
By Sean Barnard
Published:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
This is a punchline we’ve all heard since middle school, despite the fact it is not listed as any of the four options on Dictionary.com nor any of the three at Merriam-Webster.
But for the Philadelphia 76ers, insanity is about the only option they have left. Twelve months ago, the organization was celebrating Paul George signing a full scale max contract to leave Los Angeles and join Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey with the intention of competing for a championship. Flash forward and this fearful trio played just 15 games together, of which they went 7-8, and the Sixers finished the season just 24-58 overall. They missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016-17 with this marking their worst record since The Process days.
Now through the early stages of the NBA offseason, all signs point toward the Sixers simply running back this same plan with little change to the roster. Despite the poor optics or the unconvinced sighs set to be brought on by the fan base, this is the best path Daryl Morey could truly chose to go down.
The Joel Embiid Conundrum
Just 18 months ago, Joel Embiid was on pace to win his second-consecutive MVP as a consensus top-three player in the NBA. Before the meniscus tear derailed his 2023-24 season, Embiid was averaging 34.7 points, 11.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.7 blocks, and shooting 52.9% from the field. But a lot changed since then.
Injuries have always been the biggest concern surrounding Embiid. It’s the very reason he landed in Philadelphia in the first place after looking to be track for the first overall pick in the 2014 draft before suffering a navicular fracture during his pre-draft process. There’s plenty made about his injury concerns and it’s fair to note that he has never had a fully-healthy playoff run. But to be fair to Embiid, looking back before these past two seasons have been interrupted by knee issues, he has played in 66, 68, 51, 51, 64, and 63 games over the previous six season. This won’t put him in any ironman conversations, but they aren’t a significant outlier for today’s NBA stars in the load management era.
But the tougher conversation is the contractual outlook for the 31 year old. Embiid is due $55.2 million next year before a three-year, $193 million extension kicks in. It finishes off with a $69 million player option for the 2028-29 season.
For all the reactionary “Trade Joel Embiid” or “The Sixers will never win until they move on from Embiid” takes, the logistics of this are borderline impossible. Putting aside the extreme hoops it would take to jump through to make a trade for a player at this price point with the new CBA, how many teams are signing up to put that contract on their books? For all the injury concern or playoff shortcomings that have driven these frustrations, 29 other NBA teams are plenty cognizant of these same factors.
The NBA Finals run by the Indiana Pacers made plenty question this, but it has generally been accepted that it is impossible to win an NBA championship without having a clear-cut top 10 player in the league. For all the shortcomings that Embiid may have, he is still the Sixers’ best chance at this. George is 35 years old and has settled into a sidekick role in the later stages of his career. While Maxey continues to progress and has already blown past most expected ceilings on who he would be as a basketball player, it still feels a bit ambitious to believe he climbs to these heights. The track record for big men on the north side of 30 with foot and knee issues isn’t great, but the top-end talent that Embiid can still be should still be accepted as such.
In addition, maximizing assets and winning the deal are pretty core principles of how Daryl Morey operates. Trading a franchise centerpiece at his all-time low value point and just two seasons removed from winning MVP doesn’t seem to be how he operates. Plenty of teams would be requesting draft picks attached to Embiid to take on the contract. Actively making your team worse by trading away a star while adding draft picks to do so is a lose/lose deal that no franchise should be interested in. Any way you slice this, there is no route to bringing back anything close to what Embiid brings to the table when he is at his best.
What to Make of Paul George
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong last year for the Sixers, and Paul George is not excluded from this. The nine-time All-Star was limited to 41 games and averaged 16.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.3 assists. These marked his lowest statistical outputs in over a decade, before he developed into the Paul George that we have come to know.
In fairness to George, he was not the solution last year but he was not really the problem either. He was brought in to be Robin (maybe even an expensive Alfred) and ended up being forced to be Batman without Embiid on the floor. George also battled more significant injuries himself. He suffered a bone bruise in his left knee in preseason and battled groin, finger, and knee issues throughout the year. George even underwent painkiller injections for five consecutive games before the All-Star break in an effort to stay on the floor. Ultimately it was the left adductor that shut down his season. This does not excuse the underperformance on the floor, but it felt like George never got on the right stride in his first season in Philadelphia.
The first season of George’s max contract is now behind the Sixers, but he is still due $51.6 million next year, $54.1 million the following season, and holds a $56.6 million player option for 2027-28. If the Sixers were ready to cut this experiment short, it would be easier to move George than Embiid. He has a play style that can just about be put in place on any NBA roster, but there surely are not offers popping out of the woodworks in a way that the Sixers can capitalize on. Trying to make this type of move just one season after handing out the free agent contract should be viewed detrimentally from both a value and relationship standpoint. It was a bad season for reasons more deeply rooted than anything George could control, and one hopes it can’t get worse in a second year.
The Youth Movement has Started
There is no way around ignoring the $100 million+ annually that is committed to Embiid and George over each of the next three seasons. But quietly the organization has already started establishing the foundation for life after both.
Maxey has checked every single box for how he has handled himself on and off the court across his five seasons. Lost in the shuffle of this disastrous campaign was Maxey still producing 26.3 points and 6.1 assists while taking a significant stride forward in his defensive development. It also is worth noting he has been treated a bit more like a star from an organizational standpoint of late. Maxey was in attendance for V.J. Edgecombe’s pre-draft workout and dinner and Philadelphia also just signed one of his best friends, Trendon Watford, who also fills a position of need for the Sixers at power forward. This also is one year removed from the Maxey museum being put on display as he signed his massive contract extension:
Last year’s first-round pick, Jared McCain, also looked to be the runaway Rookie of the Year before his season ended with a meniscus tear. Across 23 games, McCain averaged 15.3 points, 2.6 assists, and 2.3 rebounds while shooting 38.3% from beyond the three-point arc in just 25.7 minutes per game. His season-ending announcement truly felt like the death kiss to last year’s Sixers season but at just 21 years old and measuring 6-foot-3, there should not be nearly as much concern with his recovery outlook compared to Embiid.
The Sixers just spent the third overall pick in this year’s draft on another young exciting guard in Edgecombe. The Baylor product plays a defensive-minded brand of basketball with high levels of athleticism that pop off the screen. There have been critiques about being too guard heavy in the roster construction, but selecting the best player and figuring out the fit down line is a perfectly fine game plan based on the current uncertainty of the franchise. Edgecombe also has done plenty to endear himself to the Philadelphia faithful before even stepping on the floor:
Morey also made a trade for 25-year-old Quentin Grimes at the trade deadline. Currently a restricted free agent, all expectations are that Grimes will return to Philadelphia but the two sides are still sorting through the length and dollar figures. He made the most of his opportunity with the undermanned Sixers squad, averaging 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.5 assists across his 28 games. Sorting through how much of this was empty numbers on a bad team and how much was legitimate is still to be determined, but at the minimum he will be a useful rotation player with potentially more to him than this.
21-year-old Justin Edwards also played himself into a significant role after being signed as an un-drafted free agent. The Philadelphia product and former top-ranked recruit struggled during his one-and-done season at Kentucky, but has found a clear lane for how he can impact the game at a high level. The Sixers also added backup center options in the second round in back-to-back years, each with very different styles of play. Ultimately, there is more young talent on the Sixers roster than there has been in several years.
The Eastern Conference is Wide Open
While the Sixers outlook is mostly the same, the rest of the Eastern Conference looks much different. A year removed from a championship, the Celtics have been forced to make several financially-motivated moves to trim money, and Jayson Tatum could miss all of next season due to the torn Achilles he sustained in the playoffs. Tyrese Haliburton will join him in rehab after suffering the same fate in Game 7 of the Finals, which takes another Eastern Conference threat off the board. The Milwaukee Bucks are desperately trying to prove to Giannis Antetokounmpo why he should remain with the organization, going the lengths of cutting Damian Lillard through the stretch provision and taking a $22.5 million dead cap hit over each of the next four years. Cleveland is coming off a 64-win season, but flamed out in the playoffs for the third straight season in the Donovan Mitchell era with some legitimate questions if this current core is maxed out. No one needs a reminder of the second round hurdle that has continually tripped up the Sixers, even when there has been a clear path. But there is a legitimate case this is the weakest the conference has been during the Embiid era.
A 15-game sample size is too soon to call it quits on the Big 3 experiment, even if the results were underwhelming at best. “If” will always be the buzzword when discussing the Sixers, but there is a legitimate case that a top six of Maxey/George/Embiid/McCain/Grimes/Edgecombe will be among the best in the Eastern Conference. The window to win continues to narrow and giving it another chance in this wide-open season may be their best opportunity.
If it does not work next season, the Sixers still erase one more year from these monstrous contracts. This is a huge step closer to the deals either expiring or being easier to move if the time to pull the plug is officially there. A foundation has been laid for the next era of Sixers basketball, and running it back from one more season is far from the most insane thing this franchise has done.