Mike,
You are hired to run the Sixers in 2013. You just finished 34-38 and have Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner, Thad Young, Spencer Hawes, Lavoy Allen, Nick Young (impending free agent), and not much else on the roster. You are missing 1 future 1st round pick and don't have all your 2nd round picks either. You have the 11th pick in the upcoming draft, but your best "young" player is Moultrie.
How do you make that team a contender?
Well, I could list a bunch of moves but then we'd just get into a stupid argument over whether they were realistic or not.
Speaking generally, you listed six guys who are still in the league today so they're all legitimate NBA players. I might keep some. I might trade some. I might let some walk. I might try to trade for other players. I might try to trade for picks. I might try to sign some free agents.
There are 1,001 things I might do. Some might work. Some might not. Maybe I'd turn the Sixers into a contender. Maybe I wouldn't.
What I would never do is embark on a multi-year campaign to make the team as bad as possible and hope I get lucky in the draft, which is fundamentally all Hinkie did. That's like using your mortgage payment to buy lottery tickets. You can get away with it for a while and it might work out in the end but the odds are very much against you.
Everybody needs a little luck to succeed but if your plan for success relies on luck, you are always going to fail.
Let's take a look at who the Sixers have now, compared to your list.
Covington? Maybe he's better than Lavoy Allen but that's it.
Okafor? It sure seems like the rest of the NBA would rather have 2013 Spencer Hawes than 2017 Okafor.
Saric? Is there any guarantee he's going to be better than Nick Young?
Embiid? Looks like a stud but hasn't even played half a season of games total in three years and just got hurt AGAIN even though he was averaging fewer minutes than 87-year-old Dirk Nowitski.
Simmons? Looks very promising but could wind up closer to Lamar Odom than LeBron James.
Is that truly a significantly better collection of talent than Holiday, Turner, Young, Hawes, Allen and Young? Higher upside, maybe, but dramatically better when everything is considered? All that losing and how much better off is Philadelphia?
Mike
There's a ton wrong with this as usual, but the last bit is over the top even for you. The hilarious part is that you basically admit you're clueless about their situation, and then proceed to say that despite being clueless somebody else with an in depth knowledge of the Sixers situation is wrong.
- Robert Covington is the 10th best small forward by RPM, and he's one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA. This is in a season in which he had the worst shooting of his career for 2-3 months. Oh and he makes around 1 million dollars this year, and around 1 million dollars next year. He's the best player of anybody not named Jrue Holiday in your post (excluding Embiid because 31 games in 3 years is, well, yeah).
- Embiid's talent is undeniable, and so is his injury history... If you're out two picks with nothing to build on that is a perfectly fine risk to take. Look at the rest of that top 10, there isn't a whole lot there.
- Dario Saric is possibly going to be the rookie of the year and he's on a rookie salary for 3 more years. Anybody with a fully functional brain would rather have him than Nick Young.
- Gerald Henderson is the vetty vet that veterans which apparently is sooooo hard to find that you can't trade away Evan Turner (who he is a better player than btw) because you could never sign a 1 and 1 team option for him. Sam didn't acquire him, but the general point is that meh veterans are gettable every year and aren't some kind of asset and I like Gerald that isn't a shot at him.
- Thad Young is on his 4th team in 4 years, 3 of which have been bottom of the barrel finishers (bottom 3). So yes, I'd rather have the pick we got for him.
- Okafor stinks, it happens. That was a pick that made no sense at the time and makes less sense now. Maybe he can be the center on a d league team with Terry Rozier, James Young, RJ Hunter and Jordan Mickey.
- You're also ignoring that Colangelo bungled the Noel situation, and Nerlens was one of the best defensive big men by his age in NBA history. At the very least a great back up plan for Embiid.
- And finally, they have either a top 5 2017 or unprotected 2018 pick coming from the Lakers, an unprotected 2019 pick from the Kings, all their own picks (after owing 2 when he took the job) with swap rights for the Kings this year, and one of the cleanest cap sheets in the NBA.
But yeah, I'm sure keeping Jrue Holiday the "Al-Star" whose made the playoffs once despite having Anthony Davis on his team, Evan Turner who makes Brock Osweiler look underpaid, Thad Young who's a stretch 4 that can't shoot or rebound, and Spencer Hawes who is a 3rd string Center for the Hornets is a much better path ahead Mike.
This level of denial is mind numbing. It's also hilarious that Danny Ainge was trying to do the same thing when he stumbled into Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder.