Why Trust The Process? The Story of How The Sixers Came To Be

In March of 2012, The Sixers hired GM Sam Hinkie. The life of Sam Hinkie is a bit mysterious. Mainly because he is strategically quiet and reserved. At the time, we knew he was the youngest NBA executive in the history of the league, a super smart 34-year-old Ivy League nerd who mastered the art of analytics. We knew he was born in the Netherlands and thanks to Dick Cheney, his dad made a lot of money working for Halliburton. We also know that Hinkie began his own career advising Mitt Romney at Bain Capital (I am assuming that since Mitt ran Bain and Hinkie was as a hired consultant, the two broke bread a few times).

None the less, Hinkie is smart. He knows numbers and based on the success he had in his 7 years with Houston, I was on board with his hire and I generally support many of his moves. Thus, the perception that I hate Hinkie is misguided and inaccurate. In general, I agree with many of his moves. However, I feel like he lost his way a few times, which may have delayed the proverbial launch of the eventual competitive Sixers.  

Allow me to outline, what he did right and where I believe he went wrong. By doing so, we must acknowledge that as good of a GM he may be, there are certain variables, such as luck and the horrendous rules that dictate the transactions of the NBA. We must recognize that very few organizations outside the NBA make failure a prerequisite to possibly getting better. Today’s NBA fans notice how easy it is for an average team to make the playoffs and it is directly attributed to the integrity of teams, Sixers included. They manipulate their rosters with purposely poor talent in the hopes that a player of value can be available in the draft. I digress but I only mention this because I recognize that Hinkies moves are predicated on a terrible set of rules established in the CB of the NBA.

With that being said, Sam does have a plan. It became evident from the start. It was to decrease their salary cap, acquire young players and purposely lose in order to get quality young players in the draft. 

His first big move was trading All-Star Jrue Holiday for the 3^rd round pick Nerlens Noel. On the surface it seems Noel will be a slightly better NBA’er than Holiday but the deal also included a 2014 1st round pick. This ended up being Saric, a highly-touted guard, who has shown great promise in Europe and will hopefully one day join the Sixers. So two great NBA worthy players under the age of 21 for a veteran guard.  Hinkie has completed a few of these fleecing deals, which leave me highly encouraged.

Hinkie also hired Brett Brown, who comes from the coaching tree of Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, by most accounts  one of the most successful NBA coaches in the history of the NBA. In the years that follow, Hinkie stuck to his agenda, acquiring picks in exchange for taking on bad NBA  contracts. It’s actually a brilliant philosophy. Whether it pays off or not is yet to be seen but I agree that it beats the alternative, mediocrity.

With all that being said, I take two major exceptions from the man who has quietly cultivated a cult of minions who worship the savior, Sam Hinkie (Affectionately known as " The Sons of Sam” which the anti-Hinkies find ironic, since they believe he is actually killing this franchise).

Exception 1: The open-ended plan. I get it, a good poker player does not want to reveal his cards too early but as stakeholders, ticket holders and shepherds of this historical franchise, we deserve a time table. Partly because we need benchmarks of success to self-evaluate management but most importantly, we deserve to know when it’s safe to watch/ attend a game again. As I said earlier, the need to tank is not a method Sam learned at Stanford but the longevity of a  tank is not an acceptable method to return from mediocrity. One season is too much, two seasons is kind of unacceptable, three seasons and we begin to “No longer Trust the Process.” The time of acquiring “assets” has expired and I will say that a hamster eventually relinquishes the food in their cheeks to satisfy their hunger. Play the cards you are dealt and stop treating this team like a hedge fund investment and start cashing in on dividends. Telling us we have 4 first round picks in 2016 is the same as saying; we have four 1^st picks in 2016 that we may trade in for four 1^st round picks in 2017. At some point you need to acquire talent instead of chasing your tail. To me this delaying of collecting actual talent reminds me of the fictional character Harold Hill, who sells musical instruments to the kids of River City, promising them that he can teach them to be in a band.

Secondly, I take a big exception to a team who tries to tank yet fails at that goal. We stink at winning and we stink worse at losing. The goal was to finish with the worst record in 2014 and 2015. By achieving this goal, we would have a roster with Andre Wiggins and DeAngelo Russell ( potentially the greatest backcourt in the NBA). instead we have Jahil Okafor (who I actually believe fell on our lap as the best pick in this year’s draft) but we also had to settle on Joel Embiid.

Allow me to digress on one more thing. I’ve also been accused of hating Embiid. This is also a fallacy. I like Embiid as a human being. I think he is a funny witty guy with all the intentions of putting on an NBA uniform but let’s not kid ourselves, he was never Sam Hinkies choice. You knew how I knew Embiid was talentless? It’s when I heard The Cavaliers were going to take him number 1 overall. The Cavs suck at drafting. I remember thinking to myself, even though the Sixers didn’t tank bad enough, they were still going to get Wiggins because the Cavs were clueless. The only way this can go bad is if Joel Embiid gets another major injury before the draft.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened a week before the draft.  Considering Embiid was now under 21-years-old with with two major injuries and only 1 year of sub-par competitive basketball under his belt, I felt Hinkie should have traded down. Instead he took Embiid based on promise. The point is that these are the kinds of mistakes that lead teams to tank for a 3^rd consecutive year. I realize the contrarian will say let Embiid play before you cast doubt upon him. To that I say, is there any empirical evidence that shows he can play at all or for that matter, he can stay healthy? Otherwise, we are grasping at straws and that is not the strategy of a Stanford MBA.

In closing, I wanted to reiterate that I do respect, admire and like Sam Hinkie. But these attributes alone do not inspire me to necessarily “Trust the Process.” Especially when that said process is fundamentally flawed.