Philadelphia 76ers Daryl Morey Gets Honest About Buddy Hield

Philadelphia 76ers general manager Daryl Morey is in a position to make some major moves during the 2024 NBA offseason. The team has been focused on this summer as the one to make a splash to add to their star duo of Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid.

Those two players are excellent foundational pieces as they are talented enough to lead a team. But, they need a little more help, evidenced by their first-round loss against the New York Knicks in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

The margin for error in the series was razor-thin for both teams. The 76ers were managing with a hampered Embiid while the Knicks entered the postseason without Julius Randle and then lost Bojan Bogdanovic and Mitchell Robinson during the series.

Ultimately, it was the supporting cast for New York stepping up more so than the supporting cast for Philadelphia. One of the players who didn’t offer anything until Game 6, when they were eliminated, was Buddy Hield.

Hield was acquired by the Philadelphia 76ers ahead of the trade deadline from the Indiana Pacers. An excellent 3-point shooter, he was a strong fit on paper as someone who could knock down shots when defenses gave too much attention to Maxey and Embiid.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a move that panned out as well as the team had hoped. Hield did what he could to keep the team from being eliminated, scoring 20 points in Game 6. But, he was invisible in the first five games, as he didn’t play in Game 4 and received only four minutes in Game 3.

During his press conference after the season, Daryl Morey was brutally honest when speaking about the Buddy Hield trade. He took accountability for it not working, as he didn’t want the blame to be placed on his player.

“I think at no fault to Buddy, I think the fit was less good than I thought. Most of his time was without Joel, but I thought when Joel was back that his impact and his shooting that he’d get more open shots, and he didn’t. That’s on me that it didn’t work out as well as we hoped. I still think it was one of the better acquisitions. I was really happy he showed what he could do in Game 6. There was no one more disappointed than him that he fell out of the rotation. I think Nick (Nurse) correctly saw, based on how they were guarding us, that it was hard for him to impact the game. I think Kyle Lowry and Cam Payne both really added to the team, so they were able to add at a high level. Buddy didn’t quite work as well as we hoped, but I do think going forward it’s still could work depending on the other players that are around Joel and Tyrese.”