MY SAM HINKIE MANIFESTO

I admit it. I was wrong about Sam Hinkie. When he was hired by the Sixers in May, 2013 I thought he was the savior. As an analytics guy, I was in favor of the Sixers out-of-the box approach. After all, Hinkie was credited as the guy who helped the Rockets build a team that reached the playoffs 4 of his 8 year there. He was a young, savvy Stanford suit who stood out and has early success in an NBA front office.

When he came to the Sixers, I steadfastly put my faith in him and closed my eyes to the awful stink that he was about to purposely bestow upon our team. We as fans have come to realize that mediocrity in ANY sport is the worst place to live. For most teams it means narrowly missing the playoffs but not being bad enough to land an impact player in the draft to follow thereafter. As it pertains to basketball, getting a top pick is the ONLY way to get better.

In Hinkie’s  first month with the team, he made a number of transactions, which led me to believe that he was truly as advertised. He was an analytics savant.  He traded Jrue Holiday for draft picks that essentially became Nerlens Noel (A very solid starting center) and Michael Carter Williams (Eventual Rookie of the Year). He started deconstructing the team (not a hard feat) but in the process he cleared some tremendous cap space, which is a big component in a salary cap league. I thought we were on our way. Things were looking up.

I must say that I thought Sam Hinkie did the best job possible in year one to fix much of our rosters mess. I didn’t like my team tanking an entire season but I knew it was a necessary evil attributed to the lousy rules set forth by the NBA. Losing was truly the only way to get better. For an entire year, our basketball team was clearing the way for the Andrew Wiggins Sweepstakes….Ah it seems like just yesterday it was all about #WinlessForWiggins

WHERE DID HINKIE GO WRONG

I admit I am not a basketball expert. I am pretty good at detecting bullshit like I saw when the Lakers sold the Sixers a bag of bad goods in the name of Andrew Bynum in 2012. In 9 years of the NBA (a good measuring stick), Bynum had averaged 11 points and 7 rebounds a game. Yet when he came to Philadelphia, you would have thought he was the next Wilt Chamberlain. It was such a big deal that the team had to reserve a large venue like the Constitution Center to welcome him into town. This was a year before Hinkie, so Hinkie clearly was not to blame for that colossal mistake. In fact it was that move that ended up getting Dileo and Collins fired but there was still a lesson to be learned here. Never take on an average big man with a history of injuries and a mediocre playing career.

Do you know who got that message? Of all teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers  when they bypassed an often-injured kid out of Cameroon.  20 games of college basketball, averaging 11 points, 7 rebounds and 2 major injuries by the time he was only 19-years-old. The worst thing to happen to Sam Hinkies career could have been easily avoided if Joel Embiid just stayed healthy up to draft day. Here's what would have occurred:

Embiid would have then been selected by the Cavaliers, Hinkie would have had a no-brainer with Wiggins, the tanking would have ceased at that point and the Sixers would look completely different. It is in my humble opinion that the best thing Sam Hinkie could have done was trade the number 3 pick for a proven NBA starter or some way found a way to trade up.

I’d rather not go deep into what has become of Joel Embiid as the “Trust The Processers” will all say it was the right move even though it has proven not to be. What it did was force Hinkie to go into a completely new direction. That direction was draft Saric, a guy who was contractually obligated to play in Croatia for another few years. Thus the result of 2014 was having a team with the worst record in the league and NOT getting a single player in the draft who could play for you the following season. In other words, Hinkie made a conscious move to tank a 2^nd year in a row. A precedent rarely practiced in league plagued by its own rules.

Once again Hinkie spent the year making paper moves by acquiring picks (i.e. assets) managing cap space and exercising his “optionality”. Even as I started to jump off the Hinkie bandwagon, I thought to myself, Carter Williams, Noel will look good in 2015 with a top draft pick and a healthy Embiid (even though my head never believed in a productive Embiid my heart said tried to imagine).  But then Hinkie evolved from a NBA GM to a Fantasy Basketball GM. He inexplicably ships Carter Williams off in favor of a Lakers draft pick, which will probably be a mid-rounder in 2017. He is now treating his players like “Gypsys” as described by his own head coach.

In the beginning of 2015, we learn that Embiid is still not healthy and now it’s clear that Sam Hinkie is actually Harold Hill and the players of Philadelphia were sold musical instruments without anyone knowing how to play them. Sam Hinkies process has been thwarted. To me the derailment of the process came down to two very defined moments, June 20^th, 2014 when Embiid went under the knife and June 26^th, 2014 when Sam Hinkie said, no problem he’ll be healthy and good for next year. Everything Sam Hinkie did after that was him trying to catch up to the curve.

The Sixers are in Year 3 of rebuilding with very little to show. Yes, we have a handful of picks coming up this year but nothing to go along with it? Let’s review the quality roster:

Nerlens Noel, who I always believed was a solid above average NBA’er and Jahlil Okafor a legitimate NBA all-star, who by the way fell on our lap because the Lakers took D’Angelo Russell. 

Everyone else on our team are borderline NBA bench players and most are developmental league guys.  We have nothing tangible to show for three years of tanking. Sure the “Process Trusters” will tell us about Saric, who I have a vibe may be a solid NBA player, if he ever comes over to play with a lifeless team.  They also want to remind us that Embiid is back from his rehab in Qatar and looks outstanding in warm-ups.  But this has been their line the last two years and probably will be their line 5 years from now too. Embiid is the 2^nd best Sixer to ever be in a warm-up…Bynum being the 1^st.

Some will say, I know nothing about basketball. I am 5-foot 7-inch un-athletic  dreamer who averaged  exactly 1 point a game in a neighborhood league. Go Bustleton Bengals!! This may be true but I haven’t seen anything great in what Sam Hinkie has done beyond his 1^st year other then write an epic resignation letter. Hinkie IS not a fraud. I believe he had good intentions and got in over his head.  I still believe in analytics just not his analytics. I prefer the kind of analytics that breeds positive results. I am a fan but also a realist and I do feel bad for those fans who have been played for a fool these last two years. I feel ashamed because I was all in after his first year.

Sam Hinkie will be more successful then I will ever be in doing something utilizing his brain-power. I’m not better or smarter then Hinkie and by the way, I’m not sure the Colangelo family is either. I wish I knew the right solution but right now I am just getting through the problem. My gut tells me that the Sixers  will be marginally better next season. Of course they will as they can’t get much worse. We will likely have a Top 3 pick and two more picks in the tail-end of round 1. Maybe I’m wrong and Embiid is the savior (Although it’s simply hard to see this happening based on the trajectory of his adulthood so far). What I am pretty sure is that the Sixers may climb their way back to mediocrity this season, which is exactly where they were in 2013 when Sam Hinkie took over as GM.