2024 NBA trade deadline: What Daryl Morey and the 76ers can do next

ORLANDO, Fla. -- As the Philadelphia 76ers weighed their options after future Hall of Famer James Harden requested a trade this summer, Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey repeatedly stated his objectives were either to get a star for Harden or get a return that would position Philadelphia to trade for a star in the future.

The urgency of the moment was obvious. Philadelphia has the league's reigning MVP in Joel Embiid, but the team has been unable to get past the second round of the playoffs and couldn't afford to take a step back this season.

So far, the returns on the trade that sent Harden and P.J. Tucker to the LA Clippers for Nicolas Batum, Robert Covington, KJ Martin, Marcus Morris Sr. and future draft assets have been positive. Philadelphia has the best point differential of any team in the NBA and sports both a top-5 offense and defense -- a longtime standard for any inner-circle title contender that has been matched this season only by the Boston Celtics.

"I believe we're good enough," Embiid told ESPN this month. "[Boston and Milwaukee], those teams are great. They got good players on paper. Like you guys [in the media] have said, they're better than us," he continued, tongue firmly in cheek.

"Whatever happens, happens. If we add whoever, that is good. If we don't, we're still going to go out and fight and try to win. But I believe in what we have. And we're going to do the best job possible."

Embiid's job is to continue being arguably the league's most dominant force, averaging a career-high 35.0 points. Morey's job, however, is something else: to try to upgrade the roster around his superstar and give Philadelphia the best chance to break through in the postseason for the first time since Allen Iverson led the Sixers to the Finals in 2001.

In the aftermath of the Harden trade, Morey has flexibility, and could take any number of paths forward as the league approaches the Feb. 8 trade deadline.

Trade for a star

Throughout his career, Morey has swung for the fences by chasing one big star after another.

He's traded for Harden (twice), Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook, signed Dwight Howard as the sport's top free agent and pursued deals to land Chris Bosh and Jimmy Butler in free agency, as well.

While Philadelphia doesn't have the overwhelming hoard of assets that a team like the Oklahoma City Thunder does, in the wake of the Harden deal, the 76ers are much better equipped to make the kind of star trade Morey has shown a penchant for pursuing in the past.

By getting two first-round picks and a swap in the Harden deal, Morey now has three tradeable first-round picks, three first-round swaps and six second-round picks at his disposal in deals -- plus more than $100 million in expiring contracts. The aggregate restrictions on the players acquired in the Harden deal expire on Jan. 1, allowing Morey to combine their contracts to match salary on a star if he decides to go that route.

"We're really excited for what this trade brings as well in terms of our ability to keep improving the team going forward, both in the draft capital we got that we thought was extremely important for our ability to keep improving and being a championship-caliber team," Morey said after the deal was consummated last month. "Very encouraged that we were able to get what we had set a bar in June, when James requested the trade and said, 'Look, if we can get it to here, that should be what generally allows you to go out and get a [star] player.'"

The other thing the 76ers have is clear motivation to make such a move, with the league's reigning MVP in his prime. That should have Philadelphia fully motivated to maximize every year with Embiid playing at this level.

However, the two biggest questions with the star path are ones that Morey & Co. can't fully control:

• Will any star-level players become available before Feb. 8?

• Can the 76ers put together a strong enough package for that star?

It is far from a sure thing that the kind of franchise-changing star the 76ers would like to get in such a deal will become available between now and February. There simply aren't many of them in existence and it's not often they shake free midseason. And, if one does, Philadelphia then will have to potentially win a bidding war for their services with a solid but unspectacular pool of assets.

That leaves another path that could be more likely to pursue -- and one that could have greater long-term benefits.

Trade for multiple players

Throughout Embiid's time in Philadelphia, virtually the only constant around the franchise has been a perpetual state of instability.

"There's never been any continuity," Embiid said. "As much as you want to win, if you look at everybody that's been able to win a championship ... Look at Denver. They've been together for, what, five, six, seven years? Golden State, they've been together for a long time.

"At some point, if you really want to win you got to have some key guys. And then, here and there, you can add a bunch of guys and just learn how to play with each other, and you grow together."

Embiid went from playing alongside Ben Simmons, to then pairing up with Harden. Now it appears that the 76ers have the kind of long-term star pairing that every team hopes to have. Embiid is partnered with burgeoning young star Tyrese Maxey, whose rapid improvement has created additional options for Philadelphia's pursuit of championship contention this season.

"If Tyrese gets to that All-Star level, which he for sure looks like he has a very solid chance to be, I wouldn't say it changes our calculus on what we need ... [but] I think it changes our odds of winning the title," Morey said. "Like if he becomes that good now these assets are filling in what could be our third-best player, our fourth-best player."

And while Embiid pointed to Denver's stability as something for Philadelphia to aspire to, from a trade standpoint, it is the smaller deals that first Tim Connelly and then Calvin Booth made that could provide a blueprint for what Morey tries to accomplish in the coming weeks.

While neither move brought Denver an All-Star, finding Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in trades allowed the Nuggets to find players who fit beautifully around their guard-center fulcrum of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic.

And, ultimately, those deals cost Denver only one draft pick: a 2025 top-5 protected first to the Magic in the Gordon trade.

Making a couple of smaller moves, rather than one big one, would have other potential benefits. From a continuity standpoint, it would allow the 76ers to potentially keep pending free agents like Tobias Harris and De'Anthony Melton, both of whom may have to be let go if the 76ers attempt to open up salary cap space this summer.

And as we've seen with the Phoenix Suns, for example, trying to build a team around three max players -- Philadelphia already has Embiid, with Maxey expected to sign a max deal next summer -- leaves you with virtually no depth around them.

That still, however, leaves one other path: one that would require a lot more patience -- and luck.

Wait for the summer

Throughout his two decades in charge of NBA teams, Morey hasn't been inclined to sit still. Including his tenure in charge of the Houston Rockets, he has been part of 81 regular-season trades -- second only to Oklahoma City's Sam Presti, in that span.

With Embiid playing the best basketball of his career, waiting for the future isn't the most appealing option -- nor is it one that would help the 76ers win the 2024 Finals. However, it's one that could have potential long-term benefits.

Philadelphia could have as much as $55 million in projected cap space next summer, with only Embiid, Paul Reed, Jaden Springer and Maxey's $13 million cap hold on the books, giving the 76ers a chance of landing a star in the summertime, as Morey has previously.

"You usually don't find yourself in a situation where you have a chance to compete for a championship with a few key players and you have an opportunity to add another max guy," Embiid said. "That's my opinion. That's probably unheard of. I don't know how many times that's happened in the NBA.

"So [the front office has] a chance to make the team better. That's their job, that's on them. I don't worry about that."

Taking this path, however, has plenty of risks. First, to create that cap space requires renouncing the rights to every other player on the roster -- creating another round of the perpetual churn the 76ers roster has faced in recent seasons.

Additionally, it is far from a guarantee that Philadelphia will get the kind of player it hopes to. While the names of potential free agents Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Jrue Holiday, Pascal Siakam, O.G. Anunoby all sound appealing, recent history has shown that high-level free agents do not change teams or even enter free agency.

In the past three years, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Jaylen Brown, Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant, Domantas Sabonis, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Kyrie Irving, Ja Morant, Tyrese Haliburton, Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards and Jimmy Butler have either signed extensions or re-signed with their current team.

The Rockets added Fred VanVleet this past offseason and New York signed Jalen Brunson the previous year, but those two players are the only two All-Star caliber players who have switched teams in free agency since Durant, Irving and Leonard did in the 2019 offseason.

Since making the Harden trade, the 76ers have positioned themselves to be the most intriguing team in trade talks between now and the trade deadline, especially with Embiid and Maxey keeping them near the top of the East. Now, though, it's up to Morey to figure out which path is the right one for him and his team to take.

"We can hang with anyone," Morey said. "I will say part of becoming a great team and a championship team is to be realistic. There's some very tough competitors in the East, Boston and Milwaukee in particular.

As I sit now I'm not willing to concede anything to them, but you ask 100 people, they'd say they're better than us right now. So let's see how it plays out, see where our weaknesses are. Now we have assets and the ability to address any issues and we will address those if we see them."