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USA Today
09-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Top 3 priorities for Sixers to take care of in upcoming offseason
Top 3 priorities for Sixers to take care of in upcoming offseason The Philadelphia 76ers will head into an important offseason looking to bounce back from a disastrous 2024-25 season. Expected to be one of the top contenders after winning the offseason with the big addition of Paul George, and a slew of others, the Sixers instead finished 24-58 in what was a miserable season. President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey handed coach Nick Nurse a talented roster, but unfortunately, everything that could go wrong did. The Sixers were unable to see what their star trio of George, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey could do as they were all limited by injuries. It then trickled down the roster as Philadelphia missed a ton of pieces. As Morey and Co. head into the offseason, here are the three things they should be prioritizing in the summer of 2025: The health of the three stars Everything the Sixers do will revolve around Embiid, George, and Maxey. Whether one likes it or not, Morey confirmed on "The Mike Missanelli Show" on 97.5 The Fanatic that the Sixers are committed to those three. It makes sense when considering the contracts that each player is on in order to maintain their core group of players. The Sixers never got a chance to see what they can do in 2024-25 as Embiid was limited to just 19 games. The trio played only 18 games together and they only finished 15 of them--Philadelphia went 7-8 in those 15 games. As the Sixers move forward, getting those three healthy is the top priority to get back to contention in 2025-26. Retaining Guerschon Yabusele and Quentin Grimes This is where things get tricky for the Sixers. After the big spending spree in 2024, the Sixers don't have much money to spend in 2025. Bringing back productive players Yabusele and Grimes has to be near the top of the to-do list for Morey, but does he have the resources? Philadelphia saved money (about $8 million) by sending Caleb Martin to Dallas in the Grimes deal. That should allow them to use the full $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception to bring back Yabusele. However, that would cut into how much money they can give Grimes. Now, because Grimes is a restricted free agent, they can go over the cap to re-sign him, but if the Sixers go over $5.6 million to re-sign Yabusele, then the first apron comes into play and it would not allow them to re-sign Grimes. A trade would have to be made to clear out some salary. The draft Of course, this one is out of Philadelphia's hands a bit. The pick the Sixers have is only top 6 protected so the lottery on May 12 will decide whether they pick that pick or if it conveys to the Oklahoma City Thunder as part of the 2020 Al Horford deal. If Philadelphia gets lottery luck and keeps the pick, then it has to nail it. One has to believe the Sixers can get an impactful player in the draft should they keep the pick and add a young player to a roster in need of an injection of youth.
USA Today
08-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Sixers' Daryl Morey discusses Joel Embiid, Paul George, offseason plan
Sixers' Daryl Morey discusses Joel Embiid, Paul George, offseason plan The 2024-25 season was a disaster for Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers. Expected to be contenders after the big addition of Paul George and a slew of others, Embiid was limited to only 19 games as he was hampered by a bothersome knee injury. President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey put together a star trio of Embiid, George, and Tyrese Maxey as they were expected to contend for a title in 2024-25. Instead, they were hampered and slowed by injuries and the Sixers were unable to recover. The three of them played only 18 games together--finishing only 15 of those games. They had to leave games one way or another in three separate instances. Morey hopped on "The Mike Missanelli Show" on 97.5 The Fanatic and gave an update on Embiid's recovery, his assessment of George, and his plans for the offseason, and other topics surrounding his team: An update on Embiid's recovery from surgery "Look it looks optimistic. He's with the doctor that did Kawhi (Leonard). He was up in New York, working with him this week. He's working every day at the facility. I was with him yesterday working with his folks. So he's working hard doing whatever he can to get back out on the floor. This is, you know, I mentioned this before. His issues are not, you know, I break my arm, it heals, and you come back. This is more of a complex case that these things can trend in a good direction over time, and we believe they will." On if Embiid has already shown his best "I don't think that's written. I don't think we know that. I think MVP Joel Embiid is still potentially there. We won't know, obviously, till we go through the season, but he's in an age where lots of players still play into their prime. He's in an age where lots of players, even with issues, have come back and played at a high level. So no, I do not think that." On George's season "That, obviously, wasn't his best year. He would come out and say that himself. I think he maybe did that. We believe he'll bounce back. He was an elite defender. Offensively, he was brought in to be part of a unit with elite play on the wing defensively, space the floor on offense, with Joel and Tyrese, and we believe that can still work. Obviously, we haven't really had much of a look at that. Even when they were healthy guys, certain guys would leave the game, or Joel was not 100% where he needed to be. So we have not seen that at this point." On having to rely on 2 stars who have injury history "I would say, look, obviously, injuries are hard to project, hard to know how many you'll have. But I would mention, you know, for example, if folks were to ask when, when, say, a Kawhi Leonard pulls out of USAB last year, how many people would say that he would be playing 45 minutes plus in multiple, very significant playoff games? I would say, if you go back to you know, guys like, say, a Brook Lopez, who played 30 games when he was 33 years old, and asked him prior to that, had played less games than Joel Embiid had played per season. And then comes out with a 78-game season, a 79-game season and 80-game season over the last three so look, they're hard to predict. What you want to have in this league is a chance to win the title. You want to have elite players when they're healthy. You want to have a good supporting cast, and we'll have that next year." On the biggest mistake he made in the 2024 offseason "I think last season was pretty clear, and I put this on me, obviously, we came in with the third-best thoughts to win the title last year and in Vegas. My thinking was there as well, was, how do I get this group healthy and into the playoffs? How do I have playoff level players? And generally, those are players with playoff experience. Ones that sort of round out, can shoot things like that. What I did not do well was make sure we have the youth and athleticism to get through the regular season and put us in that position, and that's something we will do next year." On his plans for the offseason "The first thing is, next year, our rotation is going to be guys 25 and younger. Like, the majority of our rotation will be there. So, obviously, that is a mistake that we're correcting. In terms of knowing before 100% in that if we were younger and hadn't had this time to develop, which obviously a bad season, one thing you get out of it is we're going to have developed players. We had the odds on Rookie of the Year when he (Jared McCain) went out with sort of a fluke injury. (Justin) Edwards has come along. (Adem) Bona has come along. We possibly will have a high pick, but if we had gone extremely young last year with a team third best in title odds, and then got to the playoffs and didn't have experienced role players, and we're playing a bunch of rookies and lost in the first round, second round, whatever, third round, hopefully finals, people have said, 'Oh, the mistake was we had too many young players', but now we're going to have most of these guys in their second, third, fourth season, 25 and younger. So that will help us."
USA Today
08-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Daryl Morey explains why he's best option to lead Sixers to success
Daryl Morey explains why he's best option to lead Sixers to success The Philadelphia 76ers had a miserable 2024-25 season in which they finished 24-58 despite the championship expectations. They had a busy 2024 offseason when they re-signed Tyrese Maxey to a max deal, brought in Paul George on a 4-year $212 million deal, and inked Joel Embiid to an extension. With Embiid, Maxey, and George leading the way, the Sixers were expected to be among the top contenders in the league. Instead, it was a disaster. Embiid, Maxey, and George played together for only 18 games, finishing 15 of them, and they went 7-8 in those 15 games. The Sixers were hit with a ton of injuries and had no chemistry as they stumbled through a tough season. Embiid, especially, was dealing with a lot as he was limited to just 19 games and underwent surgery in April on his bothersome left knee. President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey joined "The Mike Missanelli Show" on 97.5 The Fanatic and explained why he's still the best man to lead the way for this group: It was a disaster season. There's really no way to say anything but that. Look, I would say the roster next year is going to be much stronger. We've got—one thing when you have a disaster season is, how do you take advantage of it? You want to give yourself a chance at a high pick in the draft, which we have. We've got an early second. Next year, our roster will be more athletic and younger with with (Quentin) Grimes, with (Justin) Edwards, with (Adem) Bona, with Jared McCain, with potentially a top draft pick and and we're gonna have a healthier team. So I would say, look, hang in. We feel your pain, fans. And let's play this out next year. We feel very strongly about next year. In Morey's defense, the Sixers have won a lot of games since he took over in 2020. They were the No. 1 seed in his first season with the team in 2020-21 before falling to the Atlanta Hawks in Round 2. They then navigated the Ben Simmons drama to nab James Harden and won a lot of games in 2021-22 and 2022-23 before falling in Round 2 in both seasons. Then Morey and Co. navigated the Harden drama to begin the 2023-24 season and had one of the better records in the league before Embiid went down with an injury. The Sixers still recovered to win 47 games and get into the playoffs before falling in Round 1. 2024-25 was a complete misfire. While there are some who certainly question whether Morey is the one to lead the way, he still feels very confident about himself heading into the offseaon: I mean, this is the first losing season I've ever had. More deep playoff runs than pretty much any executive in league history. I've never been to the lottery, probably because we only win so I'm pretty good at the winning thing. Time will tell, but Morey's seat certainly expects to be warm heading into the 2025-26 season.
