Daryl Morey Says Sixers Won’t Settle For ‘Marginal’ Ben Simmons Deal At Trade Deadline

Less than three weeks from the Feb. 10 NBA trade deadline, the Philadelphia 76ers haven’t made much headway in their season-long attempt to find Ben Simmons a new home.

During a radio interview with Mike Missanelli of 97.5 The Fanatic on Thursday, Sixers team president Daryl Morey explained why that is.

“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 chance this year, we just feel better about ourselves because there’s a couple names that people maybe recognize, and we’re like, ‘Oh, this is exciting, we’ve got a couple new names,'” Morey said. “But we really haven’t changed our place, and we no longer have that ability to get an impact player later.

“This is literally our way to pair Joel [Embiid] with Tobias [Harris] 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 there are names playing on the court, that will hurt Joel, that will hurt the 76ers, that will hurt our whole roster in the long run more than if we’re patient.”

Morey said he believes “that this team, even without any changes, has a chance” to win this year’s title. However, he added: “It’s not as good of a chance as any of us want. We want to improve that chance.”

Since getting off to a 15-15 start, the Sixers have been one of the league’s hottest teams over the last month. They’ve won 11 of their past 14 games to vault into fifth place in the Eastern Conference, only 2.5 games behind the conference-leading Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat.

They’ve been fueled by MVP candidate Joel Embiid, who tied his career high with 50 points against the Orlando Magic in only 27 minutes on Wednesday night. Morey explained Thursday how Embiid’s dominant play over the past month has influenced his thinking with regard to an eventual Simmons trade.

“I think everyone sees what’s happening with Joel  and how special that is,” Morey said. “And all of our reaction, emotional reaction—including mine—is like, ‘We have got to do whatever we can to help him.’ And that reaction’s 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 deal has to be the one that addresses our needs. Addresses our defense, which isn’t playoff good enough at this point. Addresses our rebounding, which isn’t playoff good enough. Addresses our playmaking, as Doc said, very important that we improve that. It’s important we improve our transition. We have actually a lot of things that we need to improve.”

Morey later noted that Simmons’ absence has contributed to all of those weaknesses.

“It doesn’t even take that difficult a look to say our defense goes from the best in the league to average,” he said. “That’s a massive part of the game. And Joel and Ben together always put together an elite defense. That is so important for playoff basketball. And he also covered up, our rebounding has gone from 10th to near the bottom of the league.

“The only difference between last year’s team and this one is really Ben Simmons. We’ve had some really nice new players in [Georges] Niang, and [Tyrese] Maxey’s taken a big step forward, and [Andre] Drummond’s added a lot, but the reality is the core of our team is the same, and it has a Ben Simmons hole in it. It really does.”

Morey is still cautiously optimistic that Simmons would be willing to return at some point this season if the Sixers can’t trade him by the Feb. 10 deadline, but that doesn’t appear likely. ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne said earlier this week on NBA Today that Simmons is prepared to sit out the entire season if need be.

“If it takes the entire season to trade him, if it takes all year for the Sixers to find a trade that’s acceptable for them, he’s prepared for that,” Shelburne said. “… He’s OK if it goes the whole season if that’s how it goes.”

Morey made it clear that he’d like to trade Simmons by the deadline, but he deemed it “less likely than likely” because it “takes two to tango” on any trade.

“Trades are not easy to construct in this league,” he added. “There’s a lot of risk aversion. There’s a lot of decision-makers that have to be hurdled. It’s very complex to put a deal together, and that always makes it less likely than likely to get a deal done.”

However, he noted that Embiid’s dominant play this year has altered his mindset with regard to his asking price for Simmons.

“Look, we absolutely need to get an impact player,” Morey said. “But you know, there’s an impact player that has to be in the top 30 of the league. Because Joel’s playing amazing and has lifted us into probably 5 percent plus title odds just on his play, now we might be able to do with a top-40 player who’s a great fit. It opens up possibilities. Or we could do it where we do a trade that helps the team, that’s a better fit, and maybe our future opportunities are still open because we get some draft picks as part of it.”

If no such deal materializes in the next few weeks, Morey appears open to keeping Simmons past the deadline and revisiting the situation during the offseason, when he may have a wider array of trade opportunities. He might even be eyeing a reunion with Brooklyn Nets star James Harden, who could become a free agent this summer by declining his $47.4 million player option for next season.

While it may seem reckless to potentially waste an MVP-caliber season from MVP, Morey believes selling low on Simmons would do far more long-term damage.

“If they think we’re burning the season away without trading Ben, we are 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,” Morey said. “We’re burning way more by doing a marginal trade than if we’re patient. We have a solid chance this year, and then we also have the ability to win more in the future as well.”

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac.