The Philadelphia 76ers made a few moves on Thursday before the trade deadline but they didn’t make the big splash that some had hoped for. With reigning MVP Joel Embiid out after a knee procedure, the Sixers needed to bolster the roster to weather the storm with him out.
Eliot Shorr-Parks of the Audacy original podcast “Clap Your Hands” expressed his disappointment with the Sixers and general manager Daryl Morey after a lackluster NBA trade deadline.
“Watching it live and going through it, I’ll be honest, my biggest feeling was disappointment. Disappointment that this is it,” Shorr-Parks said (2:30 in player above). “Me and you did the pod when they traded James Harden and talked about how they’re going to have so many assets to make this team better. And when Daryl Morey talked about the idea of trading Harden when he did trade Harden that his responsibility as GM of the Sixers is to make it so Joel Embiid has the best chance to win every year he’s in the league. And it’s his responsibility to surround Joel with talent. How was that accomplished (Thursday)?”
The Sixers ended up acquiring Buddy Hield, Cam Payne, and two second-round picks while trading away Marcus Morris, Furkan Korkmaz, Patrick Beverley, Jaden Springer, Danuel House, and four second-round picks.
“Buddy Hield, obviously he’s a great three-point shooter, all those things. Buddy Hield’s not changing this team’s fate. The guys that they brought in are not changing this team’s fate,” Shorr-Parks continued. “Cam Payne is not changing anything about this team. They traded some second-round picks but they got a lot back, too. They didn’t spend big draft capital. They didn’t spend any of their first-round picks. They didn’t trade Tobi.”
Shorr-Parks was hopeful that the Sixers would make some impact moves before the deadline on Thursday, but that wasn’t the case.
“They didn’t do anything like that,” he said. “Did they get marginally better? Sure. If you really want to just look on the court, Cam Payne is probably better than Pat Beverley. Buddy Hield is a player that I think is going to come in, he’s going to shoot a lot of threes, which is something that the Sixers needed, but I didn’t want to have a day where I have to squint to make it look good.
“I wanted a day where we did a pod and we started and it’s like ‘They went out and they shocked the world and they got Paul George.’ Or ‘Oh my God, they did get Murray,’ ‘Can you believe they actually traded for Jimmy Butler?’ ‘Man, Anfernee Simons, no one thought they were going to trade for him.’ It was none of that. There was no creativity. There was nothing special about (Thursday).
“They’re better, sure, but I don’t feel better. I don’t feel good about where this team is at. I feel discouraged. I feel disappointed. And I feel let down, frankly, by the team and how they handled this.”