Josh Harris and Bob Myers Speak to the Media (Hour 3)

This is Unfiltered with Ricky Bo and Bill Collerulo on 97.5 The Fanatic and the Fanatic App. All right, we're coming up on the 4:00 hour here on Unfiltered. We're waiting for Josh Harris and Bob Myers to step to the podium. Now, if this was Nick Sirianni, I would say they're going to be late, but I don't know if Josh Harris and Bob Myers will be late. I don't know. In fact, I think this is the first time we've heard from Bob Myers because his job title was with Harris Blitzer Sports. Yes, correct. Right? He is not sports entertainment. He's the president of sports for the overall company. So, I don't think we've ever had a chance to even speak with Bob Myers in terms of a press conference. So, who knows? We'll find out if he's punctual or not. But, as soon as they get to the podium, we will go right to it. We will carry it in its entirety, and then we'll be reacting to it when it's over. So, I would love for people who are paying attention to the presser to weigh in after. We'll have conversations about what we learned, and if we did in fact learn anything about what the future plans could be. But, I do expect a lot of questions about Joel Embiid's future, Paul George's future, and then some questions about the past as well. Like, we just heard on the We Hear You say, 'Whose idea was it to trade Jared McCann? Were instructions given to Daryl Morey that he had to get under the luxury tax? Who had the bright idea in September of 2024 to give Joel Embiid a three-year contract extension even though he had two years remaining on his contract? When you went and gave Paul George four years, why'd you give him four? It sounds like from all reports, no team was willing to give him more than two. Why'd you give him four?' So, there's a lot of questions about the future and the past that need to be answered. So, as we await them, you also got the NFL schedule released tonight. But, all these insiders are leaking games and they're being confirmed. Ryan Fowler from NBC Sports Philadelphia has leaked a bunch of games and Dave Zangaro has confirmed a lot of them. They're all on the website. So as we wait for Bob Myers and Josh Harris, let's just go through some of the games we know because we know 13 games now for your Philadelphia Eagles. Week one, they're going to open up at home a 4:25 game against the Washington Commanders. Then they go on the road week two to Tennessee. Two winnable games to start the year. Then week three, this is a big one. It's a Monday night football game in Chicago. 8:15 Monday night on ESPN week three. That has the potential to be a really good game. And those are two back-to-back trips that Eagles fans would love. Oh, yeah. I already looked at that Nashville trip. Unfortunately, I don't think it works. Yeah, and both of them because you're going to get nice weather September 20th, September 28th. Beautiful. Nashville and then Chicago in September, beautiful. I mean that that's a great two trips back-to-back. even actually I really did not think about Chicago. There now. Yeah, you should go. Shy Town's a beautiful town. Beautiful city. All right, then you got week four, you're back home against the LA Rams a 1:00 game and then week five you go to London to take on the Jags 9:30 in the morning. Do you find it weird that the Rams is supposedly a 1:00 game? I found that a little bizarre. was 1:00 this year, too. Yes. This past season. You're right, that is weird because that's a pretty big game for both teams. I mean it has been also in recent years in general. They've always They've always, you know, been great games to watch in general. They've been opponents that match up pretty nicely. Now, as an Eagles fan though, the 1:00 start's great. Oh, yeah. Cuz the LA Rams are coming from the West Coast. That's great to have them start an early game. Yeah, they get the the disadvantage there for the Rams. so then I'm I'm thinking would that week six game then be a bye week? Because if you're in Jacksonville in week five, you're then home week seven against the Cowboys, at Washington on a Sunday night week eight. Oh, wait, excuse me. Week seven's a Monday night football game, too, at home against the Cowboys. And then you go to Washington for a Sunday night, and then you come back home for a Sunday afternoon against the Giants. Three straight NFC East opponents. I would not be shocked if they gave them the week six bye right before that three NFC East opponent games. I feel like that's what that is really alluding to right there, is that it is going to be a week six bye. Especially also since we looked last year, what was it? Vikings and Browns and I think what was it? The Vikings? The Vikings stayed there, right? And hold on, I'm being told Josh Harris and Bob Myers are at the podium. So, you'll give me the go-ahead I'll give you the go-ahead as soon as we Go-ahead is going ahead. All right, so we're going to go to Josh Harris and Bob Myers now. Listen closely. I'm going to be taking detailed notes. We will react to everything that happens. We will bring you this conference in its entirety. Here we go.

This is a passionate fan base. This is a blue-blood organization. And so, to get put in this position is a privilege, it's an honor. I view myself as a steward to the fan base, and I take that very seriously. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't think Josh and David Blitzer and HBSE was serious about winning and weren't committed to winning. Again, I view these things as great challenges. These are great responsibilities to be in these chairs. But also not easy. And I know we have challenges ahead. I spent yesterday with the existing members of the basketball front office in Chicago. Elton Brand is there today with the group. We've got a lot of work to do. And we know that. With the 22nd pick in the draft, time to get to work. We're less than 48 hours though away from this change, so I have some work to do and I look forward to doing that. And again, you know, what I would say is when you look at the NBA, there's a few places that stand out as far as the history of the organization, the care of a city, and this is certainly one of them, and I'm excited to kind of move forward in this role.

Gina Mizell from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Bob, can you sort of detail what qualities you are most looking for as you begin this search, what you're going to prioritize, and what you feel like are the what this organization needs in that type of leader at this point in time?

Gina, I'm a big believer in character and leadership, and I'm looking for a person who embodies those things. But there's many characteristics under that that I believe kind of qualify in making a modern GM a success. There's front-facing responsibilities, there's responsibilities of managing star players, there's responsibilities of managing up to ownership, there's contract negotiations, there's draft process, there's evaluating analytics, there's medical staff. You go down the line and these jobs have an enormity to them. So, I'm looking to find someone that can check as many of those boxes as possible, but also raise their hand and say, 'You know what, I'm actually not good in this space. I'm going to need some support.' Because the misnomer about these jobs is I had some success in my previous job, but it wasn't me by myself. There are teams of people that make a team in an organization successful. So, making sure we have the right person to lead them, but also the right people underneath them, which is important. And the person that is going to get this job, like I said, I hope they check all those. They won't. It doesn't exist. How can we support them in roles that they don't have?

Bob Cooney from On Patterson. What are some of the biggest obstacles that you see for this organization right now going into next year's, you know, immediately, and then some of the things that are beneficial to the next president of basketball operations for this organization?

I'm sorry, what was your name? Bob Cooney. Okay, Bob, nice to meet you. Look, there'll be one happy team at the end of this season. Just one. There'll 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. And so you have to acknowledge the why of that. And how did we get here, right? So there's some good moments, there's some good things about this organization, and there's some things we need to get better at. And some of those things, Bob, we can fix internally, and some of them we can't. And so we have to be honest about who we are and why we came up short. Because you only do these jobs, you only take these jobs to win a championship. I think players, if they're being honest, only play to win a championship. I didn't hear any players say, 'Well, we've had a great season and this is exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to get swept in the second round.' Nobody's saying that. I'm not saying he's not saying that. So, why did it happen and what can we do? And again, that involves an intense evaluation process, getting to know the players, getting to know the coaches, getting to know what works better, what can we change, and sometimes those solutions are ours to control, and sometimes they're not. Having done this job previously, sometimes I could get the team better internally, and sometimes I couldn't. And then you have to make changes externally. So that's our job. I think there are some positives and there's some things that are challenges that we have to work through, but all of it has to be evaluated starting with now we've got a 22nd pick in the draft. We've got to get that right. And then there's free agency. And then there's an off season program. And all those things matter to get us to where we want to go.

Tony Johnson with The Athletic. One of the adages in the NBA is that it's doable to go from bad to good, but it's very very difficult to go from good to championship contender. You guys have gone from bad to good. You've accomplished that. What is it going to take for you guys to go from second round knockout to championship contender and why haven't you guys done it?

I believe that adage 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. So 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 you say if it doesn't work we're going to be bad. When you're bad if it doesn't work we're still bad. But yes, that is the nuance and challenge of any team, right? So there's some teams there's not a lot of teams. We made it to the Elite Eight you might say. Well, you know, you don't get it really celebrated for that in this business. Nor nor do I believe should you. So then you say what do we need to do to get to great? I've actually been lucky enough to see what great looks like. But that's not easy. Right? It's not easy. So 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. Attention. Do we have that? Do you want that? Do we want that? Do we want to take that responsibility on? Are we satisfied? I don't I know he's not. And our players better not be satisfied with four to six second round playoffs. Yes, it's not easy to make the playoffs. But nobody plays this game to make the playoffs. In fact, 16 teams make the playoffs. More than half the league. That's not anybody's goal. The goal is to win a championship. So I say these things I don't but I also want to say clearly how hard it actually is and how hard it will be. There is no wave of wand, me sitting up here at a press conference and talk for 10 seconds and that's the answer to fixing everything and we're off and it does not. This requires a ton of work. And so, whoever we bring into this 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. But we need our players to want that, too. And that's our challenge to put on them.

David Murphy from the Philadelphia Inquirer. In this process, who will be setting the philosophy big picture-wise? Is that are you going into this search saying this is what we think this roster can become? For instance, early in Steph Curry's career there was questions about whether to trade him or not. You know, there's a person saying no, this guy is going to be a guy that we build around and a championship roster will be developed around him. Is that are you looking for someone who will answer that question themselves or is that something that you're going into it kind of having looked at this roster knowing what general direction it needs to go in?

Dude, I'm a big believer in whatever the best answer is, whoever comes up with that is the best answer. I don't care who says it, but it requires a lot of debate, a lot of conversation. I'll tell you what I'm looking for in a leader. Somebody that's committed to getting it done, to getting us there. And is aligned with myself, is aligned with Josh, is aligned with our expectations, our work ethic, our commitment, our competitiveness. If they want to make a big statement about what we need to do, I'll listen to that. I asked the staff last night that's existing, what are you guys going to do? What do you think? A lot of different answers. And they said, what do you think? I said, 'I don't know the answer, but we're going to figure out the answer.' As far as like one specific thing, I never think like I said, having been fortunate enough to see how you win, I love Steph Curry. I love him. He got one Finals MVP. It's just crazy. It's not one person that wins championships. It's a team that wins and he would say that, too. And he doesn't care. He's got four NBA championships. That's what matters. It's not about anything else. It's about the team and that's we want as many people that I know the nature is to look at one person. It's never one person. It's a team of people. Whoever wins it this year, it won't be one guy. It'll be a team of people and we got to figure out what team we can put together that has an opportunity to do that.

To follow up on that, you have a roster right now that has two young guys who you mentioned who clearly are potential centerpieces and then you have two older kind of aging veterans who are also among the highest paid players in the league. You know, there's different ways to approach that. You know, do we build for the future around the two guys? Do we try to win next year thinking that we can get more out of the two old guys? That's kind of the philosophy that I'm referring to.

That is David, that is the question. And if I had the answer to that question, then I'd actually just do it. I don't have any to tell you. I just do it or I look forward to partnering with leadership to get that answer. But you're asking the right question, but that's a question I think everybody's asking, right? Like how do you Not and it's not to criticize an older player or praise younger player, it's about how do we get past the second round? How do we get further? But that's what makes the job hard. That's what makes it gratifying is figuring If it was easy, you know, it wouldn't be worth it. It's very hard to build these things and build them in the right way.

Hi Josh. Hi Bob. Crystal Rich, CBS Philadelphia. Bob, you mentioned that one of the responsibilities and things that you're looking for is someone who can manage our players. You also said you want them to be in alignment with Josh and yourself, which is understandable. And you just touched on this, but what is the dedication, if you will, to see the fulfillment of Joel Embiid and Paul George's contracts and how much in alignment does the new president of basketball operations have to be with you guys on that? How big of a role does that play in who you select?

Again, not having interviewed anybody, that's a good question that I will ask them. What how do you feel about our roster, right? And I imagine I'll get different answers from different candidates. And there'll be one answer or maybe a few that stand out and say that's really interesting. I didn't think about it that way. Or I might say, 'What about this? What do you think we can do here? What do you view from the outside?' Sometimes when you talk to candidates or people outside your organization, you get a different answer. When you talk people inside, there's a bias inside the building as far as outside. Somebody say, 'You know, actually I think this can work. Or I really like this guy. What if you played this way? Or what if you partnered these two guys?' Again, I don't look at it though, and I don't want to speak for Josh, is whoever we hire, I'm not going to base it on the first thing they do. The first player This if we get it right, this person will be here for a long, long time and make many decisions and hopefully many of the right decisions. But as far as near term, yeah, those are questions I'll ask. May borrow your question. Just ask that question. How do you think this can work? And then I might say, 'What about this?' Josh might say, 'What about that?' The people that have been in the building might say, 'I think this.' I'm a big believer in a group. I didn't win four championships- I didn't do that. Our group did that. People did that. And I love that idea. Working in sports is the best thing because you're on a team. And so I look forward to building out someone that can lead that team and work with myself and certainly work with Josh.

And if I could just take you back to the trade deadline. Daryl Morey admitted that he wanted to use the picks that he got for Jared McCann to get a player that can help them this year. It obviously didn't happen. He also said that they traded high for Jared McCann. In retrospect, what is your evaluation of that situation and his, if you will, emotional intelligence of how he came across when he said that?

Well, I'm not going to I like Daryl. I'm not going to disparage Daryl here today. I think he did a fine job and I think he's a good person. And what I will say to your question, and I understand why you asked it, is that 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. I'm not I know you're not criticizing or just asking a question. 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, we didn't even play. 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.

Bob, hi, Adam Aaronson from Philly Voice. Can you talk about what you envision your role here being with the Sixers specifically after this hire is made? Josh mentioned the idea of you and Nick and this hire working together and how that differs from what it has been since you started working with HBSE.

Yeah, I view taking the next few weeks, not sure how long it'll be, to identify a day-to-day leader, that'll have a lot of authority here, which they should. What they're going to get and our fans are going to get is them plus me. I won't be on a day-to-day level, but on the high-level 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. And I can tell you that I imagine, and this isn't I'm not saying this lightly, I'll be communicating with that person daily, if not five out of seven days a week. You know why? I don't only view that as a job because I want to. I want to hire somebody that I can work with. I want to hire somebody that Josh can work with. And most importantly, I want to win. And I think that I have had some experience in this space, and if I have something to say, it's harder for me not to say it than say it. But that'll be my role, and obviously continuing to work with Josh on all this very high-level stuff. But I'm looking forward to kind of that role, and you know, the best part about working in sports is the competition. If you like competition, it's a great space to live in. But you got to deal with some pain. You got to deal with some loss. But when you win, it's all worth it. But that would be how I would characterize it.

We got to do a question for Josh.

Patrick Liberty Ballers. Bob, just with the draft coming up and it is so close and as you mentioned they're already kind of, you know, doing a lot of the prep. Do you want to get this person in place before the draft or is that something where if it doesn't happen you're comfortable going with the scouting that's already been done and your kind of history as an executive.

Yeah, I think Paul I'd like to have someone. I hope to have someone, but if it hasn't happened that's okay, too. But the goal would be to have someone in place for the draft to get acclimated with the new group. By the way, the group is working now and whoever we hire not sure who that will be will likely possibly already be evaluating the draft from where they coming from. So, that's a benefit in some ways, but yeah, I'd like to and I hope to, but it'll be as much time as required to get the best person because again, sure have someone by the draft, but the goal would be to have someone that's the right person for a long amount of time after that.