joined by the President of basketball operations for up to 70, Sixers, Daryl Morey. Hello, Darryl.
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me on.
Thanks for Thanks for being on. Let's first start with the mbeadh factor, and what he did last night, and you're watching the performance. And so what a performance like that well is all of us. But it also triggers some more questions about the future this season down the line. So first of all, what what was your reaction when you're watching that guy do that last night?
I mean, it was mind mind bending. So special, and I loved every, obviously, every minute of it, I'm glad to know that we had set this up. And it happened after that performance, because I think, look, you know, as a Philadelphia 70 Sixers, your fans out there and myself, you just got to realize how we're in a special time. And we all do take a step back and just say this is you know, we're all seeing greatness. And in in a person who's a great person as well. And you know, especially that makes all of us at the Sixers organization who get up every morning and say, Look, how can how can we win a championship and obviously, we'd be winning it for Nacho just to all but the city and the fans and everybody, but you, it feels like an extra responsibility when you have someone playing this great to make sure we do the right things.
And and so the urgency to win a championship is there. Now let's try to put this in perspective. The conventional wisdom and and I'm assuming that even inside your building, is that maybe you're just a little short to winning the conference and playing for an NBA title. But when you look at how one guy can carry a team, Have you have you looked at it like you know what, it without a deal, we could still be in this what is the truth that you guys are, are going over right now with your team?
Sure, I think look, the best way to like get a sense of that is to look at NBA history. And I'm a student of NBA history and our doc is even better the main brand was a great player as well. And, you know, look at it has happened that someone playing as well as indeed, has won the title. So I do absolutely believe that this team, even without any changes has a chance. It's not as good a chance as any of us want. Like we want to improve that chance we want to improve, both everyday in practice, but also in my job and figuring out how to how to maybe add to the team in a way that it really improves what's happening around what's happening around Joe and Tobias and our other, our other great players. So you know, the, you know, at the end of the day, for sure we have a chance, I mean, you can literally go to Vegas and bet on it right now. So you can calculate it, it's, it's a real chance. Now I like to be I like to be the least of the top five in the league. We're just outside of that. But we actually have a chance to win, especially.
Let's talk about the other side now to enhance your chances and what you've been trying to do all year long with this whole thing. Is your phone ringing extra these days? Are you using it more as we get closer to the trading deadline? Or is this really an active situation, that there's going to be a deal made?
I would say there's a lot of chatter on the league, whether it's a deal with us or between multiple teams, there's a lot of frustrated teams out there, I would put us in the frustrated camp and that, you know, we don't have our whole team we do have a big, you know, chunk of our of our, you know, pretty, pretty constrained salary that we can pay the players not playing. And so that's, that's very frustrating. So I think we're in that and there's teams that are frustrated, because they're losing are not quite as good as they thought they would be. And that's creating a lot of chatter. So I do think there's going to be a lot of movement around this February deadline. And you know, something makes sense for the Sixers obviously, we're gonna we're gonna do that.
Would you say right now that I mean, you got this all figured out that there's more of a likelihood at the trading deadline that you would make a deal or in the offseason.
Or they were just talking like any sort of trade. I do think the odds are that we'll probably I like any year you have a chance. Last year we made a trade at the deadline that didn't quite work. But you know, generally historically, you know, I've personally had a good track record of bringing folks in at the trade deadline. So regardless of it's the sort of the big trade, you know, involving band that people are expecting or something we would like to add to this team. It's just obviously the band deal. You know, takes on takes on more significance. That's the deal. I think what, what everyone sees what's happening with dwell and how special that is. And all of our reaction, our emotional reaction, including mine, is like we have got to do whatever we can to help them and that reactions correct. But I think it's the initial reaction that that means that we should just get the best thing possible in February. I think that leads you to a bad place. It's precisely because Joel is playing so amazing that this, this deal has to be the one that addresses our needs addresses our defense, which isn't playoff. Good enough at this point addresses are rebounding, which isn't good enough. addresses are our playmaking as Doc said, very important that we improve that it's important we improve or transition we have actually a lot of things we need to improve and anyone who watches watched a lot of NBA basketball throughout history knows that you cannot do that across multiple players. It just doesn't work they can't all play. And and as we add players that means that really good solid players like we have like a title or her II as an example, you know, they just play less or a maxi plays less. It really is important that the player we add to dwell if we really want to take our ads from wherever they're at right now to something materially higher, it has to come back in an impact player. If we do and, and, and 70 Sixers fans should know that better than any like, you know, past grade players have been traded for multiple players. And it didn't work out very well. The only player that's remembered in the in the Charles Barkley trade is because they're a head coach in the league or a prominent coach in the league. Now, if you trade one of these great players for multiple, it does not move your championship odds enough to make a difference. It might take us from where we're at now to a little bit better, but it's very slightly better and we want to for Joelle, we have to make sure we get this right and that we move ourselves into a higher tier of championship ability to win the championship and not just nudge ourselves from having the seventh best chance to maybe the six best chance and really I guess this doesn't make sense.
I guess you've said this all along. You have to get a star player in return for prevent Simmons. Now I guess what I'm asking you is the value for that star player. Is it more at the trading deadline in your experience? Or it would be in the offseason? And if it's the offseason, how do you then tell your fans that you basically burned a season to wait for a better deal in the offseason?
Well, first of its whenever it comes, right, because here's what you always have to compare your question, which is a good one to the alternative. So let's say we don't make a big note of this deadline, which has a very good chance of happening. Right? The comparison is to our where we're sitting right now we are actually sitting on a solid chance to win the championship with how well do I was playing how well Doc is coaching how well the players are playing around him, we have a solid chance. All if all the trades at the February deadline only help us in a very marginal way. What we've done is not really helped our chances here, we just feel better about ourselves, because there's a couple of names that people maybe recognize. And we're like, oh, this is exciting. We got a couple new names, but we really haven't changed our place. And now we no longer have that ability to to get an impact player later. This is literally our way to pair Joelle with Tobias and another impact player to give ourselves a real chance to win. And if we just do a marginal trade that's mostly sideways, because we'll all feel better that their names playing on the court. That will hurt Joelle. That will hurt the 70 Sixers that will hurt our whole roster in the long run more than if we're patient.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But fans will look at it differently. Fans will go well, you burned away season maybe the players you could have gotten would have helped you this year. So how can you expect?
My My point is this. Our best alternative to doing a train also burns away the season. They think we're burning the season away without trading Ben, we are all we're not only burning this season away. If we trade Ben for something that makes everyone feel good. We're also burning away all the other future seasons. So make sense. We're burning way more by doing a marginal trade than if we Are patients we have a solid chances here. And then we also have the ability to win more in the future as well. My point is like, yes, or no trade. Yeah, we're burning away what whatever they view is burning away as being burned away. Okay,
so you're saying even if you make a less than stellar deal, that's gonna get hurt even worse.
Yeah, and I don't, the labels like stellar and things like none of that matters to me. None of that matters to anybody. We're not looking for a stellar deal. We're not looking. We are looking for a deal that makes us a championship contender in the top two or three in the league of winning the title. Those are the teams that win, right? We're not like if we do a deal that takes us from the eighth best chance to win the championship, the seventh, you know, you're looking at like half a percent better. And everyone feels better because Ben Simmons who people you know, want gone. People will feel better that that name is no longer there. But our eyes haven't changed much at all. And now we've not only burned away this season, We've burned away our future as well.
We're talking about more the president basketball operations. Now I got to ask you about this because it's out there now. And it's rumored deal with Sacramento. There's a lot of names being thrown about. It's not a star caliber player in the deal that you would get back. It's he'll Halbert and Barnes who first round picks and you'd be giving up Simmons, Harrison Seibel. Is that the type of deal that makes sense to you?
So first, as expressed some empathy with Philadelphia 70 Sixers fans are hungry for news. So there, they have nothing else to do than debate possible deals. And I can just tell you for a fact that these things that are tweeted out, reported on there's really only one reliable reporter I know about, but they have we have nothing better to do I think, and I don't and I don't blame them then debate, you know, fake trade rumors, and deals. But people get as very frustrating for me, and I'm sure it's frustrating for fans to I mean, we had we had a trade debated it might even be this one that was tweeted out by ball sack sports. I mean, like people were treating that like it was a real thing. I'm serious. I mean, that is what we're dealing with. And, look, we've had conversations with pretty much every team in the league about ban. I can tell you for a fact that nothing's gotten to at this point indoor range, and generally they don't get into a range of a possible deal to get close to the deadline.
Yeah, I'm just I'm just asking you hypothetically, whether that would be a deal that would be good enough.
So now you have to tell
me what it because it's healed. Halliburton Barnier, Tony here male that made up deal. The deal is healed Halliburton borns who first round picks you would give up Simmons to buy some FiBL. Does that make sense to you?
I mean, I will answer this as best I can. I can't talk about a specific. I can tell you that for sure. There are deals with the Sacramento Kings that I think would work would work. Well those deals ever happened. I have no idea. Are they just straight deals with the kings? Probably not. Is it multiple teams? Probably. But for sure there are deals that are possible that would go over our line. To your question early on Joelle. I do think we have great Joelle is our line has moved down a little bit like the how, how much because Joel has lifted us into contention. By his sheer will of greatness this year, that does push the number of deals that we would do are more likely, if that makes any sense, it's more likely that we can find ones that get us into that top few contention because of how great Joel's is playing. So we are sitting right now on a better chance of a trade that actually helps to L in the Sixers and survives and our whole team, we there's a better chance what happens because of how great why
would that be? Why would that be a greater chance? Because the way Joel's playing Why would somebody be willing to give you something that you want? Only because you're playing better?
It's less about them. It's more about us. I'm basically acknowledging your initial question earlier. Look, there's there's we absolutely need to get an impact player but you know, there there's an impact player has to be in the top 30 of the league, because he was playing amazing and has lifted us into probably 5% Plus title is just on his play. Right? Now we might be able to deal with the top 40 players a great fit. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah, we might be able to do it with you know, it opens up possibly, or we could do it where we do it. We do it trade. It helps the team. It's a better fit and Maybe our future opportunities are still open because we get some draft picks, as part of it. So it upsides enough this year, and we maybe have a draft pick for a young player who could help us into the future, who might develop the like, if we got like a player of the caliber of a maxi coming back, we might be able to say, Okay, we got a really solid players, maybe not in the top 30. But he's a little bit below that. Plus a solid young player who over dwells prime, which we're sitting in, might develop into that. So it opens up more possibilities of deals, if that makes sense.
All right. Let me go back to the meeting you had with the agent for Ben Simmons, rich Paul last week. And by all accounts, nothing really happened in that meeting. So I need to what was the purpose of the meeting if it wasn't meant to solicit any action? What were you expecting it to do?
Well, I think action comes from dialogue. And that meeting was really about getting the dialogue better to a better place. And that's continued. My conversations with Ben Simmons, you know, rich Paul and his agents Elton's conversations, our conversations, you know, with, I'm not going to get into specifics, but there's been more conversations with then directly. CLI. So there's been more conversations, I can tell you for sure that those conversations have not progressed. So you're 100% right about that. But as anyone knows who's dealing with a difficult situation like we are, you don't make progress without first having a foundation of dialogue. And that's where we've gotten to, and we need to continue that. And hopefully those get somewhere we shall
see. The notion is that if he came back and played, it would help you guys foster a trade for him. Is his agent on board with that or not?
It's very hard for me to comment on the specific conversations with whether it sells or between us. And yeah, it's hard for me to hire for me to comment. But like, I think people can see all the different places where this could go. The one thing we're in agreement on is we would like a win win trade, trade that helps the 70 Sixers, it's most likely going to help them in his mind of what his goals are. And we'd like to accomplish that by the February 10 deadline. If we don't, then I think this foundational dialogue we've established, we'll see if that can help us, you know, work through things if there isn't a trade, which still has very good trades, they're hard to do in this league it takes to write and that's, that's, again, why I feel the fans frustration, like just get a deal done. Well, it takes two sides, right, it takes in this case is probably gonna take three sides, probably gonna take multiple teams. And whenever you're involving a big trade or multiple teams, the odds of those deals happening or just are just low. And so I think I feel the fans frustrated, like they went through so much pain to get to all and being a great player to get Tobias Harris to get Ben Simmons to get this foundation that gave us a real chance last year, which we sort of blew and should have at least gotten to the Eastern Conference Finals, if not farther. I feel that frustration I know that they went through so much to get these players together and to have one of them sad rather be somewhere else. That's, that sucks. That sucks for everybody. And so but it's important that we deal with reality and like, try and maximize. From here,
I want to ask you this question, just as a because now you've had all these months to digest this thing. How did this thing with Ben unravel out of control? It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen in 30 years of covering sports in this city. So in looking back, now that you've had months past it, how do you believe it unraveled to this point?
It's very surprising to me and everybody. I think everyone needs to look in the mirror, I look, I know, I look at the mirror with myself. What could I have done better? Could I have established a better relationship with? I would say, Yes, everyone, I think needs to look in the mirror and figure out how to do better because this is not a good situation. We're all responsible on all sides. And I can't really tell you, I mean, you know, you probably have to bet on himself, to have him explain it to you. I can't really tell you like, it's obviously not something I understand. But it doesn't matter what I think it matters what Ben saying. It matters how he's looking at it, and this is how he's looking at it. And, you know, all we can do is, you know, work through that work with him and tried to get where we have the best chance to win the championship. But it It's very surprising to me, I think, look, if you were to pull all 420 players in the league, I would say 370 of them would be dying to play for Joel Embiid, and the 70 Sixers, and the fact that we have a player who doesn't want to be on the 70. Sixers is surprising to me. And it's frustrating. And I think everyone has to take some responsibility, including myself.
And you've been around a lot of NBA players is the farted narrative goes it was triggered the hardened trade he didn't like that. And then the comments by doc and Joelle and bead, is it. Is it that simple that he that he would go off because of that, or are we missing something?
I think there's been various reports of his issues. I can't reveal what he's said those privately. It's not fair to him. But he like, doesn't really matter the reasons it's frustrating the reasons but we just need to either correct those reasons, which so far we haven't been able to do, or mega trade. Those are really our two options. And so far, I get the fans frustration that we've not accomplished either. We've neither addressed his concerns. Whether people agree with them or not, we it's it's our mutual job with them to address those concerns or, or made a trade we've done neither. So that's frustrating I get it
is it beyond is beyond realism to think that he can ever play for you again.
I 100% believe he can play it for us again. And he'd be literally almost the perfect player we could have to pair with Joel Embiid. People don't understand how much he impact I think they are. And I think that's why there's continued big trade interests in him. But it doesn't even take that difficult to look to say our defense goes from the best in the league to average, right? That's a massive part of the game. And Joelle and Ben together always put together an elite defense that is so important for playing basketball. And he also covered up our rebound he's got from 10th to near the bottom of the league. Ben Simmons, was that the only difference between last year and this one is really, Ben Simmons, we've had some really nice new players in the gang and Max, he's taken a big step forward. And, and drumlins added a lot and like but the reality is the core of our team is the same and it has a Ben Simmons hole in it. I really dug
it after all this, it can't possibly be realistic to think they would put your uniform on again.
I think he can. Obviously I think you're right, the majority of people think that's not possible. Look, my job is to win the title. My job is to continue to try to make it where, you know, we either make the right trade, or we somehow hurdle the issues that Ben has with playing here and get him back here.
Last Last question. And I really appreciate you spending so much time with me. And it's probably an unfair question you want to answer, but people want to know, like by the trading deadline, what kind of percentage do you think with your instincts in this league? That you can make a deal that will help the Sixers go forward? What percentage? Is it? 5050? Is it 4060? Is it 6040? Where are you?
I think it's less likely than likely. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully I'm wrong, like look at won't be from lack of trying. We have a whole team of front office. It's all we do. We have no other job that matters. It's all we're working on. And I only say less likely it won't be because we don't want to do to be because for whatever reason. I mean, I can tell you that these other 29 teams, none of them wake up and say, Hey, today, how can I help the 70 Sixers get better, they all wake up worrying about their own teams. So like the main reason I say less likely than likely is it takes two or three to tango. And trades are not not easy to construct in this league. There's a lot of risk aversion. There's a lot of like, you know, decision makers that have to be hurdled it. It's very complex to put a deal together and that always makes it less likely than likely to to get a deal done. Okay, so
in any event, don't pay any attention to ball sack.com That's what we're saying.
For people to ignore ball sec.
It's a pleasure, man. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. We'll talk down the road. Thank you so much, Mike. There is now Maury. Well, less likely than likely. I'm actually glad to hear that. Because I'm looking at the big fish and all season. Jimmy
