When Daryl Morey was hired to run the Philadelphia 76ers last week, there were some heads turned given he’s the godfather of the most prolific three-point shooting team in NBA history with the Rockets and is now in charge of a Sixers roster that features two famous non-shooters in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
What the obsession with Houston’s three-point shooting and playing style fails to account for is that Morey is all about maximizing talent, and with James Harden, that meant spacing the floor around him to give him room to isolate and drive. Once Chris Paul was traded for Russell Westbrook, that pushed them to the super small-ball style that saw them move center Clint Capela and bring in the likes of Robert Covington, to fully open up the floor for Westbrook and Harden to dive and attack and surround them with shooters.
However, while he’s obsessed with efficiency, that’s not a one-track thought process. In Philadelphia, he has quite the task ahead of him of constructing a roster around Embiid and Simmons, but both of the Sixers young stars are plenty efficient at what they do best. What they do best just isn’t shooting threes — and you can bet that is what Morey looks to address first on this roster is adding that spacing in other places.
On Monday, Morey was introduced officially in Philly and was asked plenty of questions about how he felt his beliefs fit in with a big man like Joel Embiid, and gave a resounding vote of support for what Embiid can do for a team with title aspirations.
Morey: "Joel is the kind of player you win championships with, if you look back through NBA history."
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) November 2, 2020
He elaborated further on those questions of his style and Embiid, noting that he is all about talent and making everything work around them, saying that if he had Shaq, he’d want to give him the ball 100 times a game.
Daryl Morey, on Houston's 3-point volume: "I used to get the question in Houston, 'What would you do if you had Shaq?'. My answer was I would give Shaq the ball about 100 times. Joel is a talent on both ends."
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) November 2, 2020
As such, one can expect that Morey will be thinking of ways to get Embiid the ball in his best spots and Simmons the ball going downhill to the basket where he is tremendous — Simmons is also one of the best passers to the three-point line in the league, which Morey will look to take advantage of. Morey liking Simmons and Embiid shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the question remains as to whether you can make two stars who thrive in the same space work at a championship level. That’s the task for Morey and Doc Rivers, but you can bet they’ll give it a full go before possibly considering splitting the two up.
