Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey is "out," according to Shams Charania of ESPN, who added that head coach Nick Nurse will return for a fourth season. Bob Myers, an executive for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and the architect of the Golden State Warriors' dynasty, will lead Sixers basketball operations in the interim and hire a new lead executive:

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Daryl personally and professionally, and I’m grateful for his contributions over the last six seasons,” Sixers Managing Partner Josh Harris said in a statement. “After speaking with Daryl, we determined that it was time for a fresh start. Bob Myers will lead the process of identifying a new leader and I believe his experience in constructing four NBA championship teams will be a valuable resource to our organization. To our fans, your frustration and disappointment are understandable and warranted. We have fallen well short of our own expectations and failed to deliver in the way this city deserves. That bothers me deeply and I have confidence in Bob to establish a path forward for our franchise.”

Myers added: “I know how much the 76ers mean to the City of Philadelphia, and it’s important we find the right leader to shape the future of this team,” Myers said. “The process will start immediately, and we will be thorough and deliberate in our evaluations. I believe this is a destination for top talent across the league and look forward to solidifying our infrastructure moving forward.”

Harris and Myers will speak with reporters on Thursday afternoon.

Morey, 53, took over the Sixers' basketball operations department following the franchise's disappointing 2019-20 season. Just weeks after stepping down from his post running the Houston Rockets – Morey spent more than 13 years there – he elected to take on the challenge of reshuffling an unbalanced roster, building around young cornerstones in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.

Morey's early seasons in Philadelphia were unquestionably successful; he reoriented the roster in a way that fit the strengths of Embiid and Simmons. When Simmons melted down in a playoff series and then demanded a trade, Morey held out on making a deal until he could acquire the best player he had worked with in Houston, former NBA MVP James Harden. The Sixers were championship contenders with Harden, but after he and Embiid both crumbled under the pressure of a Game 7 in Boston in 2023, Harden put Morey on blast publicly in an effort to force a trade.

Eventually, Morey moved Harden to the Los Angeles Clippers for a package centered around distant draft picks. It set into motion a plan based around cap space: the Sixers would not take back players on multi-year contracts in return for Harden, even if it diminished their chances of Embiid, then the reigning NBA MVP, leading them to the 2024 NBA Finals. It could pave the way for a star player to join Embiid and the ascending guard Tyrese Maxey – far and away the best of an impressive collection of draft picks Morey made in Philadelphia – the following summer.

That player turned out to be Paul George, who signed a four-year max contract with the Sixers after the Clippers were hesitant to make such a long-term commitment. Then came a massive three-year extension worth nearly $200 million for Embiid, coming off another knee surgery.

Since then, the Sixers have drifted away from title contention.

Their first season with George is the only losing season in Morey's 19 campaigns running NBA teams; last year the Sixers only won 24 games as their season devolved into a lengthy tanking effort. That tanking effort was successful, netting the Sixers the right to draft VJ Edgecombe with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. That pick looks to be wildly successful; Edgecombe's stellar rookie season was the most positive development the Sixers organization has experienced in years.

Morey is arguably the most controversial executive in NBA history, and he is also one of the most accomplished executives in league history. Morey has done all there is to do as a shot-caller – save for winning a championship. Morey has never built a team which reached the NBA Finals, despite his teams having combined for a pristine .598 winning percentage with only one losing season across 19 campaigns.

As Embiid's health continued to deteriorate, George's play did the same. George was suspended for 25 games for violating the NBA's drug policy just when the 2025-26 Sixers were beginning to show promise because Embiid finally put together a healthy month of dominant play. Morey drew tremendous criticism the following week, when he traded second-year guard Jared McCain to the Oklahoma City Thunder and failed to land any players at the trade deadline for the first time in his Sixers tenure. He made an infamous comment about having "sold high" on McCain, a fan favorite now playing in a bench role for the defending champions.

Morey's core philosophy when it comes to team-building has been consistent for nearly two decades: acquire high-end talent and keep it in place. He is adamant that any team with serious championship aspirations must have one of the league's best players. And as much of the league has pivoted away from the three-star model of roster-building which dominated the 2010s, Morey doubled down around Embiid, George and Maxey.

The result: Embiid and George have frequently been unavailable and, because of the top-heavy nature of the team's cap sheet, the Sixers have been incapable of withstanding their many absences despite Maxey's continued growth.

And, after Harden elected to go scorched earth on Morey to force his way out of Philadelphia, Morey's relationship with Embiid appeared to worsen in recent months. Embiid called out Morey by name last month after missing a game and claiming he found out he had been ruled out online.

Nurse, 58, replaced Doc Rivers before the 2023-24 season. The hope was that he would be the mind to get the Sixers over the top. But the Sixers have only gone 116-130 under Nurse, good for a .472 winning percentage. That includes the calamity that was the 2024-25 season, during which the Sixers went 24-58.

Just a handful of weeks ago, it felt inevitable that Nurse's job was going to be at major risk at season's end. The Sixers have little roster maneuverability moving forward and it has looked clear that the organization did not have enough in totality to compete with the best teams in the NBA. The simple solution would have been a coaching change.

Then came the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs: after emerging from the Play-In Tournament without Embiid – Embiid was the reigning NBA MVP when Nurse took over, but he has only played in 96 regular-season games across Nurse's three years in Philadelphia – the Sixers got Embiid back and stormed back from a 3-1 series deficit to eliminate the 56-win Boston Celtics. They became the 14th team in NBA history to overcome such a margin and win a series. In between Games 5 and 6 of that series, Nurse's brother, Steve, died unexpectedly at the age of 62.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous proof of concept for what the Sixers' top-end talent could do under Nurse, with Embiid, Maxey and George finally playing at the level the franchise imagined when it ambitiously put together the star trio in the summer of 2024. But in the following round, Nurse's team was completely outclassed by the New York Knicks, who capped off a four-game sweep with a 30-point blowout win on Sunday afternoon.

Nurse, whose illustrious coaching career includes many stops overseas and an NBA Finals victory with the Toronto Raptors in 2019 during his first year as an NBA head coach, has been instrumental in Maxey's ascension as well as the brilliant rookie season of VJ Edgecombe, now a pillar of the franchise moving forward.

In the last month, Nurse has been believed to be on the hot seat, safe from speculation of a firing and back at risk of being let go. But the final verdict is in: he will have at least a four-year term as Sixers head coach.

Asked last month after returning from an emergency appendectomy where his relationship with Morey and the rest of Sixers management stood, Embiid said his focus was on the playoffs. After the Sixers' season-ending Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks on Sunday, Embiid was asked a similar question and did not address it directly, instead discussing his love for Philadelphia, desire to win as a member of the Sixers and belief that everybody needed to be better for them to reach those heights.

Given his onerous contract extension is just now about to kick in, Embiid is set to remain entrenched in Philadelphia for the long haul. But for the first time in six years, the Sixers will enter an offseason with somebody other than Morey calling the shots.