Heading into the offseason, the Sixers were seemingly on the verge of falling even further behind in the rising Eastern Conference. With the inflated, regrettable Al Horford contract handicapping their free agency plans, the Sixers would have been lucky to add more than a middling bench option- a far cry from the true playmakers they needed to remain competitive.
Things changed quickly, though, when new team president of basketball operations Daryl Morey was onboarded. As impressive as the Sixers have been the last few years- possessors of a 146-91 record over the last three seasons- they simply were not constructed to compete in the ever-evolving NBA landscape, and Morey knew it.
Close but no cigar was the theme far too often during the Brett Brown era and practically became the identity of the team. Aside from the 2018-19 season when they had Jimmy Butler, the Sixers never really posed much of a threat in the postseason. Three years, three playoff berths, three early exits. Despite their best wishes, the Sixers were caught in the vortex of mediocrity that far too many franchises get trapped in.
If the Sixers were ever going to get over the hump, they were going to have to start playing a bit more like the teams on the other side of it. Knowing this, the analytically-driven Morey acted swiftly to transform the slow, post-scoring dependent roster that he inherited into one that better suits the small ball era they play in.
Gone is the horrendous Horford contract, along with his aging bones that often slowed the team’s pace severely. In are sharpshooters Danny Green and Seth Curry, in addition to promising 2020 draft selection, Isaiah Joe.
Morey publicly stated that he believes in the Ben Simmons-Joel Embiid tandem as a championship-caliber pairing and backed up his confidence by surrounding them with shooters.
Of the 14 active players to make at least 40% from 3 in their career (min. 1,000 3-pt FGA), Morey acquired two in Seth Curry and Danny Green. Surrounding the talented Simmons and Embiid with shooters may seem like the obvious play after years of watching them struggle with floor spacing, but it is also an incredibly analytically-driven decision.
Overseer of perhaps the most three-pointer friendly offense in the league in Houston for a number of years, Morey is no stranger to the success of having a surplus of shooters.
The once 13-year Houston Rockets general manager’s imprint on the franchise will far exceed his tenure and his work in Houston greatly influenced the positionless, small ball realm the NBA has become.
Operating with an extensive knowledge of and admiration for advanced analytics, Morey’s team all but abandoned the middle of the floor, relying heavily on three-point shooting and shots at the rim. Although the transformative change never yielded a championship, the Rockets' offense was always incredibly potent and the team will be remembered as one of the perennial threats in what was a loaded playoff landscape.
Morey’s reasoning behind stressing the three-point shot stemmed from a fairly simple analytical finding. Three-point shots in basketball are more difficult because they are further away from the basket, but Morey realized that the 50% uplift in points received for the three-point shot (compared to a two-point shot) made it more mathematically efficient than almost all two-point shots other than layups and dunks.
Enticed by his discoverings, Morey worked meticulously to construct a roster to maximize this advantage. The Rockets began cornering the market on sharpshooters, surrounding their MVP James Harden with a three-point friendly, spaced-out offense.
The results worked wonders for the Rockets offense as they etched their names in history. Under Morey, Houston set the record for most three-pointers made by a team in a single season THREE times (2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19). Additionally, the team also set the record for most team three-pointers made in a single game with 27.
In a conference where Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are rostered on the same team, it was the Rockets that were setting records for their three-point efficiency.
Again, the theme of long-range shooting for the Rockets was not just an inability or unwillingness to do more, but of the analytically-driven methods of Daryl Morey.
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It’s also important to note how evolutionary Morey’s introduction of analytics to the NBA atmosphere. Basic statistical methods and assessments have been around for some time now, but advanced analytics is a much more recent, evolving arena. Baseball was actually the first U.S sport to integrate and adapt to the findings of analytics.
The Oakland A’s and their infamous ‘Moneyball’ technique of building playoff contenders was largely based on analytics and began to spread rapidly. Teams began infusing the findings and analytic minds behind them into their franchises more and more as they looked to maximize their talent. Now, most of, if not all MLB teams have a major analytics department on staff, both for assistance with roster construction and in-game decisions.
Some of these ideologies and concepts have begun making their way to professional basketball and the MIT Sloan graduate Morey is a huge reason why.
Eager to find any edge or advantage he can, Morey didn’t hesitate to expand and react to his analytical findings and hasn’t hesitated to use them to better the Sixers either.
Less than a month on the job and Morey has already made the Sixers significantly better. And, even more impressive, he managed to do so without giving up the farm to land another star.
Morey knows that there is value in marginal, hidden advantages. He realizes that in order to win a championship, everybody on the roster is going to require a skill or two that fits seamlessly into the system.
That’s why he added Danny Green, Seth Curry, and Dwight Howard in quick succession. Curry and Green obviously fit the sharpshooting theme Morey is after and who better than the towering Howard, who carries the sixth-highest field goal percentage in NBA history, to take a few close shots at the rim while Embiid is taking a breather. Howard’s ability to snag the offensive board and give the offense second chances shouldn’t be overlooked either. His 4.7 offensive rebounds per 36 minutes ranked third among all players over 1,000 minutes.
Far too often under Brett Brown, the offense would get stale and stall out. Morey has done a masterful job of ensuring that roster construction won’t be a reason that happens this time around.
The players will still have to show up and earn their paycheck, obviously, as the numbers alone will not produce a championship. Still, Sixers fans and players alike should still be ecstatic about the direction Morey now has the franchise headed in.
After struggling to establish any real offensive identity in the last few years, the Sixers now look to dispense a multi-faceted attack with Morey at the helm.
Photo by Ringo Chiu/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire
