As Sixers ponder future, they seem to have a star in Bob Myers

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Bob Cooney

CAMDEN — The offseason isn’t a week old for the Sixers after their second-round sweep at the hands of the New York Knicks, but there has been plenty of movement during their down time.

After relieving Daryl Morey of his president of basketball operations title earlier this week, the organization announced that Bob Myers — former Golden State Warriors president and general manager and current president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment — would oversee the basketball operations of the team and play a key role in finding a replacement for Morey.

Thursday, Myers and principal owner Josh Harris met with the media at the team’s practice facility and one thing became blatantly clear: Having Myers in the front office is about as impressive as a young and fully healthy Joel Embiid playing basketball. A two-time winner of the NBA Executive of the Year and the GM who oversaw four championships for the Warriors, Myers was jaw-droppingly good in the half-hour Q&A, speaking of what his search for a new front office person would entail, about how he will be an advisor, confidant and student when it comes to building the team, despite the obstacles of two seemingly immovable contracts in Embiid and Paul George.

The more he spoke, the more you kind of wanted him to move his chair away from the mundane Harris, who read an opening statement claiming his uneasiness in having to let go of Morey and that his frustrations of not advancing the team further in the playoffs is matched by no one. The blueprint of running a basketball organization seems second nature to Myers, though he readily admits it not being an exact science. Now the hope has to be that Harris and company leave him alone and just supply him, and whoever he hires, with the necessary resources. The key resource right now is for Myers to find someone to run the day-to-day operations under his tutelage, because as much as he may be the most qualified and desired person by many for the position, that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards, whether that is Myers’ decision or not.

Which isn’t a bad thing. Being one of the best at what he does, who better to hire someone to take over a job that he had mastered so skillfully with Golden State? And Myers isn’t a “my way or the highway” type. He stated his desire to learn from anyone and everyone in whatever way possible in order to get the organization to a championship contending level.

“I’m a big believer in wherever the best answer is, whoever comes up with the best answer, I don’t care who says it,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’m looking for in a leader, someone who is committed to getting it done, to getting it there, who is aligned with myself, who is aligned with Josh, who’s aligned with our expectations, our work ethic, our commitment, our competitiveness. They asked me what I thought, and I said I don’t know the answer, but we’re going to figure out the answer.

“We weren’t a happy team at the end of this season. There will be 29 teams that didn’t get the job done. We’re one of them. We’re one of the 29 that didn’t win the championship this year. Our season’s over. So you have to acknowledge the why of that and how did we get here. There’s some good things about this organization. There’s some things we need to get better at. And some of those things we can fix internally, and some of them we can’t. We have to be honest about who we are and why we came up short. I only take these jobs to win a championship. I think players only play to win a championship. Why did it happen and what can we do? That involves an intense evaluation process, getting to know the players, getting to know the coaches, getting to know what works and what can we change. Sometimes, those solutions are ours to control and sometimes they’re not.”

Where the Sixers are right now seems to be somewhat comparable to Purgatory, with little wiggle room to get much better. The never-ending health issue of Embiid notwithstanding, the team is short on depth, shooting and a legitimate point guard. Myers didn’t try to hide those facts, in fact, he met every deficiency head-on. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers immediately, but is driven to find them, with the help of his new hire and players and coaches.

“I had some success at my previous job but it wasn’t just me myself,” Myers said. “There are teams of people that make a team and an organization successful. So, making sure we have the right person to lead them but also the right people underneath them, which is important. The person that is going to get this job I said I hope they check all these boxes, they won’t. It doesn’t exist. How can we support them in roles that they don’t have?

“When you’re bad, you can try anything and if it doesn’t work, you’re still bad,” Myers continued. “If you’re good, you have to risk something to go to great. That’s why it is harder to go from good to great, because you risk something. You risk making a mistake and falling back to bad. When you’re good, you’re scared to do that, or you’re more resistant because if it doesn’t work, we’re going to be bad. That is the nuance and challenge of any team. We made it to the Elite Eight, you might say. You don’t get really celebrated for that in this business, nor do I believe should you. I’ve been lucky enough to see what great looks like. It’s not easy. It’s a hard look at everything. It takes a great level of uncomfortability to win a championship. Nobody plays this game to make the playoffs. The goal is to win a championship. I want to say how hard it actually is and how hard it will be. There is no wave of a wand, me sit up here and talk for ten seconds and that’s the answer for fixing everything. Whoever we bring in to the process, including myself, including our staff, our players, has to be committed to that in a very big way. And that means sacrificing time and energy and putting everything you have into this. And we’re going to demand that. I’m going to demand that of whoever we hire. I’m going to do that myself because I just don’t know how to not do it. We need our players to want that, too.”

Myers spoke of his desire to have someone fill the vacant seat by the start of the draft on June 23. But if he hasn’t found someone qualified by then, he believes all will be good. When asked if current general manager Elton Brand was a candidate, Myers said the two haven’t really spoken much about it but will at the draft combine this week in Chicago.

“I view taking the next few weeks, not sure how long it will be, to identify a day-to-day leader who will have a lot of authority here, which they should,” Myers said. “What our fans are going to get is them plus me. I won’t be on a day-to-day level, but on the high decision making, which is being here at the draft, being here leading up to the trade deadline, being available for free agency discussions, free agency meetings, things like that, I’m going to be involved at that level. I imagine I’ll be communicating with that person daily, if not five out of seven days a week. I don’t view that as a job because I want to. I want to hire somebody that I can work with. And more importantly, I want to win and I think I have had some experience in this space. If I have something to say, it’s harder for me not to say it than to say it.”

That’s great to hear. Hopefully the fans, staff and organization hear a lot from Myers for a long time.

NOTES

About Joel Embiid, Josh Harris said, among other things, “We’re looking forward to having him back on our team.”

Harris said the ownership group bought tickets to Game 4 against the Knicks to try to keep fans out, and added, “our job is to come back and win that series next year. I didn’t like it.”

On the trade of Jared McCain at the deadline, Harris said the recommendation was made by Morey and then was given the okay by the front office, including Myers. When asked about the luxury tax coming into play in the trade, Harris said, “the front office absolutely has the green light to go into the luxury tax. We’ve been in and out of the luxury tax. It’s not an issue. We’re building an arena here and the amount of dollars you spend on that versus a luxury tax is magnitudes more. There’s no issue with a luxury tax.”