The Philadelphia 76ers will bring back both Daryl Morey, the president of basketball operations, and Nick Nurse, the head coach, for the 2025-26 season. There were previously rumors of 76ers ownership potentially firing the duo in light of the team’s disastrous 2024-25 campaign, which ended with a 24-58 record.
While addressing the media on April 13, Morey said the franchise was determined to right the wrongs and produce a better season for fans.
“Obviously a tough season … not where we expected to be,” Morey said, via ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
“We expect more. We really feel for the fans who put their heart and soul into this team, and we know we’ve let you down,” Morey continued. “Ownership gave us the resources to make aggressive moves this offseason to put a championship roster around Joel [Embiid] and Tyrese [Maxey] and sometimes, those aggressive moves don’t initially work out, but we feel good about [them].”
76ers Ravaged By Injuries
Among the moves that Morey alluded to, the 76ers made a big splash in the 2024 offseason by acquiring Paul George. The 9-time All-Star left the Clippers to join the 76ers on a four-year, $212 million contract. At the time, it was widely expected that the 76ers would legitimately challenge the Celtics as the best team in the East.
However, the 76ers were ravaged by injuries for the most part, with Joel Embiid missing 63 games, Tyrese Maxey 30 and George sitting out 41. Even their prized rookie, Jared McCain, played only 23 games before enduring a season-ending knee injury.
The 76ers will need better luck with injuries in the 2025-26 season, but Morey believes he needs to put the team in a better position to succeed.
“If everything sets up well, we’ll have a younger, more dynamic roster around a healthy Joel, Tyrese and Paul,” Morey said. “I never felt like Coach had a healthy literally one game with all three of them. I know they played some games together, but they didn’t finish all of them and even the ones where it was like their first game back.”
Will Sixers Trade Paul George?
“It was tough … for me personally, it was obviously the toughest season of my career, and I’ll just say personally, I will spend every waking hour figuring out how to turn this team around going into next season,” added Morey.
The 76ers could definitely use some youth. George will be 37 during the final year of his four-year contract with the 76ers. Many analysts believe the 76ers may be best served to move George in the 2025 offseason before the aging wing becomes untradeable.
Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus explained why the 76ers have no option but to move on from George. He further proposed a deal involving Bradley Beal from Phoenix.
“George hasn’t looked worthy of his $211.6 million max deal, and the Sixers are just in a bad spot,” he wrote on March 14. “Does [Bradley] Beal want to be out of Phoenix and into Philadelphia’s iffy situation enough to waive his no-trade clause? His deal is one year shorter than George’s.”
The one thing working in Philadelphia’s favor is that it has the fifth-best odds to land the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. A deep draft, the 76ers could potentially land a game-changing player whom they can flip into a star on the trade market.
76ers Make Big Decision On Daryl Morey, Nick Nurse