Daryl Morey joined the popular Sixers podcast, Rights To Ricky Sanchez with Spike Eskin and Michael Levin on Wednesday, to discuss his trade to acquire James Harden for Ben Simmons.
Morey admitted he should have had a better relationship with Simmons, who became disgruntled following the team's semifinals eliminating loss to the Hawks last season.
"I should have had a better relationship with Ben, I really believe that," Morey said. "That's on me. I think knowing how sensitive he was to public comments that, that behooved us to be, just organizationally, more careful on that. I think it's important to know your top players and their different spots where you have to pay attention. Yeah, I'd probably say those two. I mean I'm usually more upfront person with trades with players. I'll be very upfront with them when things can happen. Like the timing on the first Harden trade [opportunity last season] got very challenging because it was in a time where trades normally don't happen. Yeah, I could have done a lot better. I just focus on myself, mostly."
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So what if the Sixers were unable to get Harden, then what?
"We had a whole plan of convincing Ben to come back to play," Morey explained. "Who knows of how successful that would have been. Didn't make a lot of sense to push on that option, until we had to do it.
"There was a lot of planning, what will be said, who will say it. What meetings, me trying to convince Ben to come back. I would have been doing whatever it took. There would have been a lot of persuasion attempted."
Simmons, in his introductory press conference with the Nets, explained how he had some personal things going on and didn't feel like he could get back to the right state of mind in Philadelphia. Some people became skeptical of Simmons' mental health claims after requesting a trade and sitting out for the entire season, but Morey believes Simmons was in fact dealing with some things mentally and/or personally.
"I believe him," Morey said. "He was going through something and so it's whether or not we could have gotten to the point where we would have him play basketball for us."
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Morey says prior to the trade the Sixers had around a three to five percent chance to win the title, which incorporates the possibility of convincing Simmons to return. Now, with Harden, Morey believes the Sixers have about a 13-15% chance to win the NBA Title.
"I would say there are five teams with almost the same odds—which I've never seen before— it's Phoenix, Golden State, us, Milwaukee, Brooklyn, all have about the same odds, all in the 12-15% range."
Morey says he's still not over the Hawks series last season.
"No, how do you lose three at home? To this day I'm stunned. We were up 26, the whole thing. It was a collective failure.
"Last year, we actually got to 18 [percent chance to win the title] when we were in Game 7 at home. That's depressing."