CAMDEN, N.J. — Daryl Morey’s objective at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline wasn’t to show up for a day-after press conference at the 76ers training facility with no additions to speak about.
That he made a convincing case of Friday afternoon in Camden. Whether the goal handed down to him from ownership was explicitly to avoid the luxury tax was left more vague.
Morey expressed some dismay that his only moves were minor in a record-setting flurry across the league: trading Jared McCain for four picks, including a 2026 first-rounder; salary-dumping Eric Gordon to Memphis for flexibility to convert Dominick Barlow to a standard contract past this year; 10-day pacts with Charles Bassey and Patrick Baldwin Jr.
Absent any new players to talk about, Friday’s availability devolved into … well, why there weren’t any new players to talk about.
“We were trying to add to the team, and we didn’t find a deal that made sense, that we thought could move the needle on our ability to win this year,” Morey said in the first of several formulations of the same thought.
The deal of McCain to Oklahoma City is the biggest choice open to interpretation.
The 16th overall pick in the 2024 draft is gone after just 60 games, 23 of them mostly brilliant last year, 37 this year addled by the recovery from a meniscus tear and a preseason’s thumb ligament rupture. The return includes a way back into the first round of the 2026 draft via the Houston Rockets’ pick in the late 20s.
Morey maintained that despite McCain’s shooting struggles and rotation ill fit, the 76ers are selling high on the 21-year-old whose departure hit hard a locker room in which he was beloved.
“I am quite confident we were selling high,” he said. “Obviously, time will tell. We weren’t looking to sell, I’ll be frank. Teams came to us with aggressive offers for him, and you could say, yeah, that’s because he’s a good player. I agree with that. We thought this return was above, for the future value for our franchise, what we could get.”
He continued: “Jared is a player who is a great future bet and a great potential, great player. And we wish him luck. We feel like this return sets us up better to set up the team in the future.”
Morey tempered expectation that the 76ers, whose first-round pick heads to the Thunder, wanted a foothold in an expectedly deep 2026 draft, saying the team is “not necessarily using the pick.” He classified the return for McCain as among the assets he tried to move for other pieces.
Morey was forced to defend the luxury tax of it all, a threshold that 76ers ownership has generally tried to remain under. The suspension of Paul George for 25 games got them more than $5 million closer to the line. Dumping McCain and Gordon allowed them to stay under while converting Barlow and being able to add in the buyout market.
Whether tax savings was a stated priority from an ownership group, led by Josh Harris with his bigger-ticket franchises in other leagues and markets and his recent business controversies, was something Morey refuted, though the actions tended to speak louder.
“For sure, if we had found an add and we were going to end up higher, we would’ve ended up above it,” he said. “We’ve done it several times when I was here. Over the history of ownership, they’ve done it many times. We didn’t see we didn’t see something that did that.”
Morey believes that the 76ers as composed have adequate depth. The suspension to George set a new potential direction for additions on the wing. He expressed satisfaction with their depth at center behind Joel Embiid and thinks Nick Nurse’s utilization of wing forwards like Trendon Watford and Kelly Oubre can ease the fact that they have only three playable guards.
The fact that Tyrese Maxey leads the NBA in minutes and VJ Edgecombe leads all rookies in minutes is a concern Morey reflects back to Nurse, the team’s history of injuries left unremarked upon.
“We feel like we’re a deep team,” he said. “People might not agree. But we do feel like a deep team. In fact, there are many people who are writing that we’re a deep team, so it wasn’t just our opinion. I do think Nick is arraying our players in an optimal way to win games. For sure, you always want more good players. We still have two roster spots. We’ll see what those are still to come.”
Morey posited the 76ers as a prime buyout landing spot for players cut loose by other teams, though that market’s options are limited and flawed. The 76ers have to navigate the next 10 days without Jabari Walker, who has played 45 games but is out of two-way eligibility without getting a standard contract.
Morey’s tone about how the lack of deadline action was received by fans was resigned, a reflection perhaps of his own disappointment.
“I think we’ve done a done a lot of good things to get the team in this situation, but for this deadline, I understand the reaction that we didn’t add,” he said. “But I feel like if folks were excited about the team before, the same group that they were excited about before is going out there, obviously save Jared.”
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Ten days before the deadline, Joel Embiid injected himself into the conversation by saying he hoped the 76ers wouldn’t “duck the tax” as in previous years and keep the core together.
The team acted counter to the center’s wishes on the first count and only barely did the second.
Morey said, “I took his comments to heart,” and that stars like Embiid were kept updated throughout the process.
Morey did take the opportunity to praise Embiid’s work to return to something close to his former MVP form.
“I see he’s still improving,” Morey said. “When I watch, obviously, credit to Joel, who’s put in tremendous time and work to get to even the run he’s gotten to. So I think we do need to acknowledge that and really talk about, and he’s been very gracious to talk about the people around him who help him, but I think mostly it’s the it’s the work he’s put in to get to here.”
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In his first comments since George was suspended Saturday for 25 games for a positive drug test, Morey declined to comment on whether it was due to a drug that George had reported to the team.
“We absolutely have a protocol,” Morey said, how the team deals with players’ pharmaceutical and supplement diets. “In terms of more detail than that. I’m really not at liberty to talk about that.”