A lot of sour grapes in this thread. Give credit where it's due: Sixers have a really good young core and will be a factor in the East for years to come.
Credit is one thing ... Calling him a genius though is too much.
One way or another he turned sixers into good team with bright future. That is true. But acting like he is me magician GM who turned coal into diamonds is silly especially when other GMs have done it without turning their teams into an embarrassment first
I agree with your takes. Hinkie isn't a genius; he just actually had the nerve to continue to lose year after year. Being in a stable market like Philly probably helped a lot, too. If he had been in say NOP or MEM and did such a thing, the teams probably would have packed up and moved to Seattle or Vegas.
It worked out even better for him that the most of the top players he took were injured for a year plus. It ensured that they couldn't possible improve their record by playing actual good players.
I understand that things seem to be working out for PHI, but look no further than our own Danny Ainge when searching for an NBA GM genius. He continues to pull off the most lopsided of trades and has proven to be a very good evaluator of talent in the draft. Heck, the Cs were even rated as the team with the best free agent pitches across the league.
Frankly, two of the best moves I think Hinkie made were to trade MCW for the Lakers pick and take on Landry, Thompson, and Stauskas for the Sac pick. Those were actually shrewd moves.
And as far as Lebron goes - just about any team would become a championship contender with him on their team! We had max cap space for each of the last two seasons, too; wouldn't it have been pretty cool if Lebron wanted to sign with us?