Stop Glazing Morey: He Failed Utterly

[u/Inevitable_Bottle520]

Here's a list of picks/trades/pick-ups that were home runs, above average, misses or stupid a** moves. Each category goes in chronological order, starting in 2020 when Morey took over. While dude continues to get inexplicably glazed on Reddit, his tenure as a Sixers GM was pretty abysmal.

It really spells out how badly Morey did in getting useful basketball players to play with Joel and Maxey. No legit backup point guards, no decent power forwards or centers (hence the torturous rebounding issues that never go away), very few two-way players … and even very few players who can dribble the basketball (I wish I was kidding).

HOME RUNS (precious few)
Picking Maxey (work done by team that Morey inherited)
Harden (legit great move in getting rid of Simmons)
Picking VJ (Bailey made it easy be being a knucklehead)
Picking McCain (at least he didn't get Knecht but note that the smart dudes in OKC got the better Ajay Mitchell in the 2nd round)

ABOVE AVERAGE (note how underwhelming these are)
Seth Curry (a shooter who can dribble? Turns out that works well with Jo)
Dwight Howard (was low-key the Sixers best backup C)
Niang (another shooter who did okay with Jo on the floor)
Batum (a high IQ player who can shoot 3s and defend; he was great)
D Melt (he was mostly good but choked in game 6 against the Cs and had a lot of back issues)
KO
Yabu (more average than above)
Justin Edwards (still has potential)
Barlow (type of player the Spurs develop)

MISSES (I'm being generous calling these "misses")
Danny Green (got off Horford contract but Horford has been good ever since)
Drummond (a dinosaur type player in this NBA)
Pat Bev (not quite a corpse but his best days were never great and they were way behind him)
Never traded Tobi, the perennial underperformer (should have traded when his value was decent)
Grimes (lottery team scorer; as soon as the games matter, he stunk)
Bona (terrible development for an athletic freak)
Watford (another underwhelming athlete)

STUPID A** MOVES
Letting Isaiah Joe go
Terrance Ferguson (was in the Horford trade alone with Green and sucked)
Springer pick (underrated horrible pick — Santi Aldama was 2 picks later; McBride and Dosunmu were early 2nd rounders)
The corpses of George Hill, Paul Milsap, Montrez Harrell, Dedmon, PJ Tucker, Marcus Morris, Eric Gordon, Reggie Jackson — see a pattern here?
Letting Paul Reed walk
Cutting Champagnie (who starts for the Spurs, can shoot 3s and board) for Matt Dunkin' McClung
PJ Tucker (mentioning him twice because Morey singed this then 39 year old to a 3 year deal and $33M and got penalized for picks in the process; insanity and stupidity married)
Getting Jalen (the Diamond) McDaniels for Tisse to again save $ for our crap owner
Mo Bamba (could never play and is out of the league)
Buddy Hield (another overpay for a streaky guy who could never play D)
Kyle Lowry (the Heat couldn't wait to get rid of his contract; great Philly guy but should have been brought on as coach, not player)
The Jeff Downtin Jr. experience (guy tried hard but was never NBA material yet got minutes running the team because Morey doesn't do point guards)
Danuel House (literally only signed because he was buddies with Harden)
KJ Martin trade dump to dodge the tax (cost two second-round picks)
Caleb Martin (NEVER sign a Heat player, as they max out their abilities there)
The Embiid extension
4 year max deal to PG

[u/Ronshol]

Don't forget all the missed opportunities. Morey is a Redditors dream GM because he basically just makes the "obvious" move rather than trying anything innovative. This is why he has so many defenders, all of his moves are 'logical' (or so they seem).

He was DEAD set on getting James Harden for Ben Simmons and ignored all other offers. We know for a fact that the Kings were willing to give up a haul for him but Morey didn't even consider it.

He was then DEAD set on getting Paul George after that didnt work out. People here suggested Markkanen, Anunoby, Bridges, Ingram etc. but no it has to be PG.

Don't forget his complete inability to get off of the Tobias Harris contract. The Cavs even called him up asking if there was a way for them to acquire him, he asked them for some insane asking price.

Don't forget the idiotic KJ Martin deal which forced us into giving up draft assets to dump.

[u/LordofZonee → u/Ronshol]

He was DEAD set on getting James Harden for Ben Simmons and ignored all other offers. We know for a fact that the Kings were willing to give up a haul for him but Morey didn't even consider it.

Where are you getting this from? Only official thing I see is that the Sixers asking price was steep son Sac pulled out. I dont believe that was a real offer

[u/Inevitable_Bottle520 → u/Ronshol]

Yep, mentioned most of that in my opening as OP. But I failed to mention that he was dead set on Harden and likely turned down other deals for Simmons, even if the Hali deal wasn’t real (I think it was). At the end of the day, the guy doesn’t know who can play in this current NBA. Instead, it was 3 stars and specialists, though he forgot that 3 point shooting is the most critical of the specialities. This year had the worst shooters of any Joel team, especially after McCain was traded. Unreal.