The Philadelphia 76ers are once again entering an offseason filled with uncertainty after another disappointing playoff exit, and newly appointed executive Bob Myers made it clear the organization is taking a hard look at everything.
Myers addressed the state of the 76ers following the firing of former president of basketball operations Daryl Morey and the franchise’s second-round sweep against the New York Knicks, speaking Thursday alongside managing partner Josh Harris.
“I believe that adage,” Myers said when discussing how difficult it is to go from being a good team to a championship team. “Because when you’re bad, you can try anything, and if it doesn’t work, you’re still bad. But if you’re good, you have to risk something to go to great. … You risk making a mistake and falling back to bad.”
He later added: “It’s a hard look at everything. It’s a hard look at whoever we hire, and we’ll place it on them. It’s a hard look at what I’ve experienced and what I know that makes a championship team. But it’s also a question to our players: ‘Do you want to get uncomfortable?’ Because it takes a great level of uncomfortability to win a championship.”
One of the biggest talking points from Philadelphia’s season was the controversial trade that sent Jared McCain to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the deadline, which Myers addressed.
“I like Daryl,” he said. “I’m not going to disparage Daryl here today. I think he did a fine job, and I think he’s a good person. … What I will tell you is that was a few months ago. Right now we have the 22nd pick. Our job is to get that right.
“We have three second-round picks from it. … We should be graded on the ultimate result of transactions like that. But I understand. I made draft picks where we got an ‘F’ right away, 10 minutes after the draft. F! And I was like, ‘How do they know it’s an F? I mean, the guy hasn’t even played.’”
Myers continued, addressing the reporter who asked the initial question: “But your job and everybody’s job is to react. I totally understand that. Our job is to make a trade. There’ll be a reaction, it’ll be positive or negative, but that trade isn’t done. And our job is to make sure that on our end of the trade, we do a good job with drafting the best player at 22.”
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