Thought he was a decent player who would've been better served being born about 20 years earlier.
I do recall thinking the Sixers were absolutely idiots for drafting him so at least I was right in that regard.
The Process, ha. "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut (Embiid) every once in a while."
I suppose you could argue that Hinkie didn't get to play out The Process; and a number of the blunders, like drafting Markelle Fultz, were not on his watch. He presided over three drafts, 2013 to 2015. But having said that, the draft record was poor, and the trade record was also poor.
Embiid is the exception, but that was a big risk, in my view - a 7-footer with foot surgery before he even gets to the pros is a bad bet. As it is, he has averaged 55 games a season in his career - if you throw out the first two seasons, when he didn't play at all.
The 2013 draft was very thin on talent, especially at the top of the lottery; like most gm's, Hinkie missed on Giannis and Gobert. Hard to judge him too harshly for that. Instead he picked MCW, who - though it's hard to believe now, was rookie of the year. A much bigger mistake, he traded Jrue Holiday for Nerlens and what turned into Dario Saric.
2014 was the Embiid draft. As I say, it was a terrible risk; but the fact that he'd have to sit out for two seasons was at least consistent with The Process, since it meant that they could continue tanking. He got Jerami Grant in the second round, good value for a starter-quality player; trading him away was not Hinkie's doing, and in any case they got Tyrese Maxey out of it.
2015 he picked Okafor and Richaun Holmes, tending to confirm Hinkie's bias toward loading up on bigs. The idea that Okafor and Embiid might have trouble playing together was heard from draft night on; but the worse problem was that Okafor was just drafted too high.
Validity of The Process? If Sam Hinkie had made better choices, it might have worked out well. Perhaps that kind of radical tanking is not so good for the NBA. Perhaps Danny Ainge's process is a better model for rebuilding anyway.