FireMorey wrote:Morey's problem isn't lowballing, but he does have a problem. I was listening to RTRS the other day and Mike went on a rant that I couldn't agree with more. And that is Morey has been terrible on the finer details. Things like re-signing KJ Martin so you could trade him for some quality player and not only not being able to do that, but having to give up picks to get off the contract. Seriously, like that is amateurish stuff that we'd mock other organizations for. That's the type of stuff that would get other GMs fired or at least really make them look bad in the eyes of their owner. Signing Drummond and a year later desperately trying to get rid of him. Signing Caleb Martin and, credit to him, he got Grimes for him in a trade, but my god, Martin was a disaster for the Sixers. So bad they had to get off his contract mere months after giving it to him. Trading multiple picks for George Hill and then having to let him go because he sucked.
Every year he makes at least a couple moves like that where he comes off as so amateurish. Then it's like you gotta let Yabusele go because you can't sign Grimes in time to get his contract straightened out so you can avoid the hard cap. I guarantee you a team like Thunder would have gotten all that straightened out and lined up weeks ago.
Have any of these moves killed the Sixers? No, but they add up, and they feel like the moves of a novice GM, not a guy who was hired to replace a novice GM.
Caleb Martin was a steal, no one really expected we’d land him, and most people were just hoping we had a shot. But he botched the KJ Martin contract and I didn’t even like the Horford trade. But every GM has those. Presti’s had them. Pat Riley’s had them. The difference is Morey keeps putting out competitive teams, year after year, usually with one of the most talented rosters in the league.
You also have to understand, Embiid is one of the hardest stars to build around, especially under the new CBA. He takes up a huge chunk of the cap, and you never know when he’s going to be available. So you need one or two more stars just to stay competitive when he’s out. And before you know it, you’re already near the first apron. That makes it almost impossible to build like other teams with deep rosters made up of borderline stars. We can’t just pivot to a setup with guys like Hartenstein and Caruso instead of Paul George, it’s a totally different team-building path.
You said “these don’t kill the Sixers”, maybe because they don’t really add up in the way you think. Morey’s hits often outweigh the misses. I mentioned the Horford trade earlier, which I hated at the time, but we ended up getting the No. 3 overall pick out of that mess. And he also added McCain and Justin Edwards, who already look like two of the best players from last year’s draft. That alone could easily make up for whatever pick we end up giving away next season.
A GM’s job isn’t to make no mistakes, it’s to put a product who can reach a certain threshold of being a contender then be able adapt through setbacks. And on that front, Morey’s done the job.
The world doesn’t run on theory. Real life’s messy, nonlinear, full of noise. And the one’s who make it are the one’s who make mistakes, adjust and be able to compete at a high level over and over again.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
