This season would have been a hell of a thrilling ride for Philadelphia 76ers fans had the team played up to its potential. After all, the playoff race in both the Eastern and Western Conference is as tight as it can get, and with only a week remaining until the postseason officially begins, teams remain engaged in a war of attrition, jockeying for positioning to get more favorable matchups in the first round.
With how fierce the competition has been, you would think that the team that are still pretty much in the race are laser-focused on doing whatever they can to be the best team they can be come playoff time. However, you’d be shocked at the amount of teams that effectuated drastic switch-ups with just a few games left on their regular season slates.
Not long after the Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins, the man who was behind Memphis’ successful rebuild and pivot from their Grit and Grind era, the Nuggets dropped the hammer on Michael Malone, the lone coach to lead the franchise to a championship and Denver’s winningest coach in all its history, as well as Calvin Booth, their general manager.
At this rate, no one is safe. What more for a team like the 76ers, right?
Daryl Morey could be on the hot seat for the 76ers soon enough
Seeing what happened in Denver and Memphis, it is not out of the realm of reality to infer that Philadelphia’s brass could start warming up to the idea of adopting the same mentality that caused the axing of those prominent people leading successful franchises, especially with the way the situation has turned out for the franchise not only on the hardwood, but also outside it.
While Nick Nurse will likely get the ousting call first, Daryl Morey will also probably follow suit should the head coach be jettisoned. The longtime executive is still under contract until the 2027-28 season, yet the team’s urgent situation could be enough of an impetus for the franchise to move on from him.
There is already some brewing tension between the 76ers brass and Joel Embiid’s camp with regard to his injury management, and that could just be the tip of the iceberg. In fact, there are already intermittent, yet resounding calls from the fanbase for a changing of the guards up top, especially since the James Harden fiasco that ended pretty badly.
Again, no one is safe (unless you’re maybe Gregg Popovich). And considering how the ebbs swept the Philadelphia 76ers toward the lottery this season, Daryl Morey could be next — but unlike Jenkins, Malone, and Booth, it would be far from unprecedented.