PHILADELPHIA — Daryl Morey is back where he started. Not really. But, kind of.
When the Sixers president arrived in town in October 2020, he inherited a team that many swore had nowhere to turn. Two years of haphazard decision-making had left the franchise with little apparent room to wiggle free from an ill-fitting roster that was coming off a first-round sweep to the Boston Celtics in the NBA bubble. After watching Jimmy Butler lead the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals that year, the Sixers found themselves reckoning with a future that was hamstrung by the four-year, $109 million contract they’d given Al Horford after trading Butler’s rights to Miami. Suddenly, it looked like there was no way out.
The lesson of that offseason is the same as this one. There’s always a way, particularly when the goal is to move from a disjointed roster to one that makes a little more sense. Two years ago, the solution arrived in two steps. First, the Sixers traded Josh Richardson to Dallas in exchange for Seth Curry. Then, they attached Horford’s contract to a 2025 first-round pick and a couple of former second-round picks and sent the package to Oklahoma City while netting Danny Green in return.
