Anybody Who Doubts Daryl Morey After That James Harden Trade Is A Buffoon
Bill Baptist. Getty Images.I know there are going to be plenty of people out there who hate this trade from the Sixers' standpoint. How do I know? Because it's the internet and the internet is filled with people who have room temperature applesauce for brains. There are also people out there like Stephen A Smith who get paid millions of dollars to shit words out of their mouth like this.
How getting a former league MVP and a 10x NBA All-Star to help out Joel Embiid in the middle of an MVP-caliber season with a wide open Eastern Conference in exchange for a dude who was never going to play for this team again constitutes as the worst day in Daryl Morey's career, we'll never know. But that's life for the SAS mman.
You go back to just a few short months ago. People were clamoring for Daryl Morey to just trade Ben Simmons for whoever he could get. To just move on from Ben Simmons for role players instead of keeping him around and dragging this saga out any further. To that, Daryl Morey said "I think the fuck not", and went on to say that he'd keep Ben Simmons for 4 more years if he had to. The only way he was going to trade him was for a difference maker in return.
A few months later the trade deadline comes and you've got a disgruntled James Harden in Brooklyn. Thank god none of the idiots who call into Philly sports talk radio are running the Sixers or else they would have traded Ben Simmons back in October for Ben McLemore (just chose the most random guy I could think of here). Instead, Daryl Morey stuck to the plan and held off until an opportunity to make the Sixers a legitimate contender again presented itself. I'd say this move does the trick.
And not only did he trade Ben Simmons for James Harden, but he didn't even have to include Matisse Thybulle or Tyrese Maxey in the deal. He kept both of the young bucks, and had to throw Seth Curry and Andre Drummond in the deal. Obviously there are going to be the people who hate moving on from Andre Drummond because 1) the Nets needed a big and now that makes them pretty complete, and 2) he was an unbelievable backup for Joel Embiid. Losing that Embiid insurance plan with putting Drummond on the floor is going to hurt. And losing Seth Curry stinks a little just because he was so easy to root for. But no way in hell am I going to cry over losing a backup and Seth Curry when it means that James Harden is a Sixer.
There are also the people who are going to hate moving Ben Simmons to a division opponent, especially since he'll most likely be a better fit with KD than he was with Embiid. But a couple of things there. 1) HE WAS NEVER GOING TO FUCKING PLAY FOR THE SIXERS AGAIN ANYWAY SO IT DOESN'T MATTER. And 2) Ben Simmons will either never play another game in Philly again, or he'll just get bullied relentlessly every time he plays against the Sixers which will render him useless. So it's either he doesn't show up at all, or he gets so shook by Embiid bullying him and the fans bullying him that he actually hurts the Nets more than anything. He'll be great with KD any time the Nets aren't playing the Sixers. But that doesn't effect the Sixers at all.
At the end of the day, we need to realize that the Sixers championship window with Joel Embiid isn't necessarily wide open. There are only a few more years left that we can realistically expect Embiid to be dominant. He's one of the greatest big men the league has ever seen, but he's still a big dude who can't go on playing for years and years. We're currently witnessing peak Embiid where he's proving himself to be a top 3 player in the league. So the time to win is right now. Ben Simmons wasn't going to help you win right now considering the fact that he's too much of a coward to even put on a jersey. James Harden helps you win right now, and he immediately gives Joel Embiid the help that he deserves. Daryl Morey wasn't going to let this monster year from Embiid go to waste, he was patient enough to not give into Ben Simmons/Klutch's bullshit right away, waited for the right deal to come along and pulled the trigger. Daryl Morey should be the mayor of Philadelphia right now, and anyone who disagrees can suck it.