LeBron James to the 76ers: Here’s What Daryl Morey Needs to Do Now for a Shot at the King This Summer

Are the Philadelphia 76ers good enough to win the NBA championship in 2024? Most of the metrics suggest that yes, they are. They are one of three teams along with the Rockets and Bulls to rank in the top five in the NBA in both offense and defense. Their plus-8.4 net rating is comfortably their best with Simmons and Embiid on the team, and it’s better than any champion since the 2017 Warriors. Embiid is having what is quite possibly the best individual offensive season of the 21st century. At the very least, they credibly meet the threshold for team president Daryl Morey’s 5% rule.

“If you’ve got even a 5% chance to win the title — and that group includes a very small number of teams every year — you’ve gotta be focused all on winning the title,” Morey told Zach Lowe all the way back in 2012. He’s largely held to that idea ever since, making more all-in-type trades than any other executive over the past decade and change. He seemingly has a 5% team this year, and thanks to his October trade of Simmons to the Rockets, he has the assets to improve it meaningfully. He still might, but the general tone of the reporting surrounding the 76ers is that they are approaching this trade deadline cautiously.

Thus far, the 76ers have turned up their nose at starry, typically Morey-esque targets like LaVine. They watched Harden and Tatum get traded to other teams, and while there’s been reporting surrounding some interest in Simmons, they haven’t been mentioned especially frequently compared to more desperate, older teams (cough Clippers cough). Shams Charania reported that he expects the 76ers to be “measured” at the trade deadline. There are cogent basketball reasons for that. They’ve found this season that their offense works just fine with two high-usage ball-handlers instead of three. Embiid and Simmons are having career seasons, so cutting their usage for a LaVine type makes little sense. A defensive-minded wing would go a long way, but such players tend to be expensive. Most viable playoff-caliber players are on hefty long-term deals, and Morey has reason to exercise financial caution.

The 76ers can create max cap space fairly easily this offseason. The exact amount is nebulous and dependent on a number of factors, but the general range that is floated about is $55 million. The highest tier of max salary would command a projected $49.7 million salary next season, so there’s a bit of wiggle room if the Sixers do plan to go star-hunting, but generally speaking, the price of doing so would be allowing the bulk of their own free agents to walk. Though Morey is a master at manipulating the cap and likely could preserve some depth, he’d essentially be deciding between retaining some version of this possibly championship-caliber group and using cap space to form a three-headed monster with another star.

Morey has gone to great lengths to create this cap space. He forced Maxey to wait an extra year on his rookie extension to create it—a move that, historically, hasn’t worked out well for teams that have tried it. He snuck Simmons into the Harden deal as the last significant salary left on his 2024-25 books. Philadelphia has added no long-term money. They largely haven’t been linked to players with long-term contracts on the trade market. Preserving that space has a ton of theoretical value, but avoiding long-term money on the trade market with a team this good would directly violate Morey’s 5% rule. If he does so, it’s probably because he has a target in mind for that space over the summer.

The trouble here is that most of the theoretical fits he may have had in mind last offseason are falling off of the board due to trades and extensions. Anunoby and Siakam are likely to re-up with their new teams. So is Tatum, who landed on the best team in the NBA when he got traded to Boston. Leonard has already inked a new deal with the Clippers. Harden hasn’t signed a new deal yet, but after Leonard’s extension he stated that he was ‘very, very optimistic something will get done on my behalf, as well.’ Perhaps a playoff collapse might change his mind, and the Sixers know firsthand how capable Harden is of engineering one, but for the time being.”