The Philadelphia Sixers decided to part ways with Daryl Morey on Tuesday, with former Warriors GM Bob Myers leading the search for the next president of basketball operations. Jake Fischer, who is at the draft combine in Chicago, wrote for The Stein Line that executives he's spoken with point to the Joel Embiid extension as the move that did Morey in (subscription required).
Several executives have told me this week that they feel Morey signing the oft-injured former MVP to his three-year, $188 million contract extension — which only kicks in next season — was the true fireable misstep.
Morey signed Embiid to a three-year, $193 million extension in September 2024. The center played just 19 games that season, and doubled that in 2025-26 by playing 38 games. That was still very far from the range that Philadelphia needed him to be in.
The kicker is that his extension will kick in next season, as he'll make around $58 million. Embiid will make around $62.6 million in 2027-28, and he will have a $67.2 million player option in 2028-29 that he will almost certainly exercise at the age of 34. That's a lot of money, even for NBA standards, to commit to a player who struggles to stay on the floor.
Morey's decision to extend Embiid came back to haunt him
Again, it's worth repeating that it haunted him and the entire organization before it even went into effect.
Fischer wrote that viewing it as Morey's "fireable misstep" is harsh because, based on his understanding, the Sixers "felt the need at the time to commit to locking up Embiid and making that known in order to march into 2024 free agency and secure Paul George's commitment."
If the George signing had also worked out the way that Philadelphia hoped, it would have made the Embiid extension look a little better. The thing is, though, that it hasn't. The forward's second season with the Sixers went a lot better than his first, but he still didn't meet the expectations that come with signing a four-year maximum deal.
Morey took quite the swing by bringing in George and locking down Embiid, who was coming off a season where he played just 39 regular-season games and wasn't anywhere close to 100 percent in the 2024 playoffs. It was a risk from the beginning, and he knew that. He just thought that it'd pay off. If it had, he'd still be around.
As much as it'd benefit Philadelphia to move off Embiid's contract this summer, that is far more of an impossible task than a realistic one. It's why Fischer added that he has "been advised to expect no definitive effort" from the Sixers to do so, regardless of who comes in as Morey's replacement.
Philadelphia is left trying to figure out what to do around Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Embiid, and maybe even George, though there could be a team willing to trade for him. If so, the Sixers need to make that happen.
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