Danny Ainge literally made the Utah Jazz money just by offering Paul Reed that contract. Putting the 76ers into the luxury tax which sends money to the rest of teams not in the tax. Danny Ainge is truly a top GM in the league.

when ainge isnt doing this:



hes doing this for the lakers:

Morey had a lot to say on a radio interview with 97.5 today

On Harden: "If we don't get either a very good player or something that we could turn into a very good player, then we're just not gonna do it."

Daryl Morey: "A lot of the depth we lost, if we had done something to bring them back, it would have hurt our ability to compete down the road."

He says they're the only contender poised to have significant cap room next year.

Morey says "an elite wing who can play both on and off the ball would be the perfect complement to Joel Embiid."



Sounds like they're really trying to set up for free agency next year. Keeping the books clean with no bad future contracts while balancing being competitive this year, just not going fully all in

Yep, kinda what we figured they were doing. They want to have major flexibility next off-season, aka two max slots available (one going to Maxey).

Not a bad move, but this could be a "punt" season depending on what happens with Harden and how you look at it. They'll still be good, but not AS good as they could be.

This post was edited by Sixers on Jul 18 2023 04:24pm

Also, I ain't mad at how Morey is handling this. Casuals online just say "TRADE HIM NOW!!" When talking about Harden. Morey is maximizing what he has, he's pretty patient (as we saw with Simmons).

I wonder what wings they're targeting.

How many prime years does Embiid have left? We have probably already seen peak Embiid from an athletic standpoint, he can still grow significantly mentally. Embiid has the biggest drop off of any MVP ever in terms of PPG from the regular season to playoffs production, his efficiency also takes a dip in the playoffs. It sounds wild but the 76ers best move might be taking in a haul for Embiid, won’t happen because GMs milk their stars to preserve their jobs but I think winning a title is pretty improbable for the 76ers if they try to go all in on 2024-2025

Well, Embiid has literally gotten better every season. Just when we think he has hit his "peak" he gets better. Granted, he's not getting any younger but id say he still has a good 2-3 more years of elite caliber production before we see any sort of fall off.

There's no reason to blow up the roster after having the third best record in the league last season (with Harden, Maxey, and Embiid all missing a chunk of time too). Figuring out what to do with Harden is the biggest focus obviously, but otherwise they'll be fine. Maxey is evolving and should continue to get better as he has every season and will take yet another step next season (especially with it being a contract year).

A new head coach, one who isn't a complete fucking idiot, will be the biggest upgrade of all. Nick Nurse will make a bigger impact than anything.

This post was edited by Sixers on Jul 19 2023 08:51am

Honestly I wouldn’t be that upset if they trade him for a haul 1-2 years down the road.. I don’t see it happening though unless he requests a trade. How many prime years left? I’d say 2-3 ish. He’ll be 30 in March. Also given his size, injury history, I’ve always thought his career will generally be shorter than other stars (part of the reason why I wouldn't mind if they moved him and reset). He’s a big guy and at that position they usually don’t last as long. Again I highly doubt they’ll move him barring a trade request. Ownership has made clear they want to keep pushing for a championship, Morey wanting to keep his job, etc

As far as 2024-2025 the team will look like very different so it’s hard to say. There’s only 4 players on the team under contract after this season: Embiid, Paul Reed, Pj Tucker, Jaden Springer, and Maxey is expected to be the 5th. That will give them a lot of flexibility come 2024-2025 to reshape the roster

Who are the free agents that year