Getty Daryl Morey, then GM of the Houston Rockets, attends the 2019 NBA Awards.
Daryl Morey’s affinity for chess has been well-documented. The Philadelphia 76ers GM is known to employ the same analytical approach while attempting to capture the king that he has used to become one of the NBA’s top executives.
This was perhaps best illustrated in a 2014 video by the Houston Chronicle’s Marie D. De Jesus, during which Morey made the comparison himself.
“In chess, you’re trying to checkmate the king and in basketball, we’re trying to win a championship,” he said. “If you’re trying to checkmate the king, you don’t go directly barreling towards it. You have to do some subtle things, use a lot of discipline and set up your strategy.”
Chess and basketball aren’t the only games in which Morey finds himself contemplating the best way to win, though. On Monday, the Sixers architect let his geek flag fly on Reddit by singing the praises of one of PC gaming’s classic, turn-based strategies.
Morey Hypes ‘Sid Meier’s Civilization’ Again
Composer Christopher Tin was doing an AMA on Reddit when Morey chimed in with a question of his own. However, it was really more of a request:
Tin made waves in 2011 when his choral piece “Baba Yetu” — which was the theme for Sid Meier’s Civilization IV — became the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award. It was a fact that Morey was keenly aware of, as Tin quickly outed him in the thread as a “Civ player.”
He then went on to answer Morey’s question, stating that a musical is on his “bucket list” and that the two should keep talking.
Shortly thereafter, Morey was being challenged in the thread by another Redditor who claimed to be a professional Civilization VI player. In response, the 76ers GM maintained that he was just a casual player in his off hours.
“You would kill me if you were pro,” he wrote. “I just play the asynchronous online turn based version with my brothers so I can do it on off hours.”
A ‘Civilization’ Veteran
Although Morey doesn’t appear to be chomping at the bit to test his skills against topflight competition, his revelation did motivate at least one Sixers fan to give the game a try.
“I’ve been trying to get myself to play Civ for years and this might just seal it!” wrote one commenter with a Philly-centric username. That reply prompted Morey to fire back with, “It is amazing.”
This isn’t the first time that Morey has shouted out Civilization. In 2018, Anil Dash of Glitch fired off a tweet asking if Portal was still the “best video game of all time.” Morey wasted little time in posting the following reply:
He is likely not alone in that assessment. As of this writing, Civilization II is ranked as the 11th highest-rated PC game of all time on Metacritic. Civilization IV also hit the top 20.
With the NBA trade deadline looming, Sixers fans can only hope that Morey’s late-night Civilization sessions and resource management strategy are chess-like in their translation to building a title contender. With the rest of the Eastern Conference looking to knock his squad off its perch, his deadline strategy could be the difference in checkmating the rest of the Association.
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