New article takes in depth look at 76ers strategy

[celticsclay]

This is from Grantland. Would be curious of some of the ardent 76ers defenders take on this article. The author makes some really strong points. I think the biggest one for me is that the 76ers whole philosophy is to hit homeruns in the draft but so far have only been hitting singles.



http://grantland.com/the-triangle/life-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-crappiness-a-closer-look-at-the-sixers/

[kozlodoev]

I didn't realize that 76ers strategy has depth...

[D.o.s.]

I take issue with the use of the phrase 'In-Depth,' particularly insofar as his painfully lightweight examples are concerned.

If he'd had the balls to say that the 76ers strategy was disgraceful and wrong, rather than being stupid (his words, not mine), this might be an article worth reading. And he even hedges on "stupid," because he doesn't have the sort of testicular/ovular fortitude to actually take a stand on it.

He's not wrong overall, but he's also not saying anything particularly interesting or revelatory -- unless you're the average Grantland reader, I suppose.

[fairweatherfan]

I'm not an advocate of what the Sixers are doing, especially when it's touted as better than our approach, but there are some pretty half-assed arguments in the article. 

Tanking's only worked 3 times in 20 years?  Well, besides "be located in an attractive city with a smart front office and an owner willing to spend", what's a strategy with more successes?  "The Sixers’ plan is stupid because it assumes that there’s a smart way to land a championship nucleus. There really isn’t."?  Well then every team is just flailing in the dark and no approach is worse or better than any other one. 

That said there are some good points, like whether they have the draft chops to pull the turnaround off, Hinkie shooting himself in the foot with KJ McDaniels, and the effect a losing culture with little accountability for mistakes has on developing players.  I also liked the note of something I've been arguing for years - Daryl Morey's "genius" acquisition of Harden + Howard was only possible because Stern saved him from himself by vetoing the Paul trade.  But as an opinion piece this is a very mixed bag.

[celticsclay]

I take issue with the use of the phrase 'In-Depth,' particularly insofar as his painfully lightweight examples are concerned.

If he'd had the balls to say that the 76ers strategy was disgraceful and wrong, rather than being stupid (his words, not mine), this might be an article worth reading. And he even hedges on "stupid," because he doesn't have the sort of testicular/ovular fortitude to actually take a stand on it.

He's not wrong overall, but he's also not saying anything particularly interesting or revelatory -- unless you're the average Grantland reader, I suppose.

I could have said lengthy then. The average grantland reader is probably smarter than the average reader of most sports sites so not sure what you are trying to say there. Do you like Barnwell as a writer?

[D.o.s.]

Barnwell's pretty good. Charles P. Pierce is their best writer. Lowe does their best analysis. Sharp used to do some good work for BulletsForever. I like the site overall -- someone on here called it Huffington Sports, which I think captures the essence of the site pretty well.

My feeling is that the average Grantland reader isn't exposed to much more sportswriting than ESPN proper and the various NBA writeups, which is to say Grantland is probably the most adventurous they get -- for example, we've argued (at length and in depth) about literally everything that's in that op/ed to a greater, more involved degree on this blog for at least two years at this point.

 We're obviously a little more invested than the average fan, who didn't start hearing about tanking until the general talking heads started discussing it, but the more motivated of the average fans read Grantland, not the CB forums.

[incoherent]

It's like every NBA writer has to tackle this subject to make themselves feel relevant? This is such a tired topic. This exact article has been written more then a couple of times in the past year.

And there is nothing special about this strategy. Its a cowardly way to run a team. Clearly they have no confidence in their coaching and development and instead of working hard to make your players better you just intentionally lose until maybe you get a player that's already good to hide your coaching\development deficiencies.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Since then, [Embiid] has ballooned to 275 pounds and reportedly clashed with the Sixers training staff, and still hasn’t played.

If you follow his Instagram, he's been putting out pictures of his physique since that 275 number dropped.  He looks in fantastic shape right now and is clearly at 6ers practices; I don't know how to embed Instagram pictures on here but you can Google it pretty easily. 

Also Saric just earned the Euroleague MVP a couple months ago and is playing super competitive ball and learning instead of being on the dumpster fire of a roster the 6ers are putting out this year.  I think that's smart...what am I missing?

Too early to judge, I like that someone is taking the rules to their extreme conclusion.  It makes life interesting.

[mgent]

I take issue with the use of the phrase 'In-Depth,' particularly insofar as his painfully lightweight examples are concerned.

If he'd had the balls to say that the 76ers strategy was disgraceful and wrong, rather than being stupid (his words, not mine), this might be an article worth reading. And he even hedges on "stupid," because he doesn't have the sort of testicular/ovular fortitude to actually take a stand on it.

He's not wrong overall, but he's also not saying anything particularly interesting or revelatory -- unless you're the average Grantland reader, I suppose.

You learn something new every day.

Today I learned ovular fortitude.

[MBunge]

I'm way to lazy to do it myself but I'd love to see somebody take on the fact that the media types who seem most in love with Hinkie's strategy appear to be the analytics crowd.  But I've never seen anyone actually crunch the numbers on whether what Hinkie is doing will lead to any statistically meaningful advantages.  Like how much of a correlation can you draw in NBA history between having one of the bottom two records in a season and getting a franchise-level star in the draft because of it.

Mike

[MBunge]

Since then, [Embiid] has ballooned to 275 pounds and reportedly clashed with the Sixers training staff, and still hasn’t played.

If you follow his Instagram, he's been putting out pictures of his physique since that 275 number dropped.  He looks in fantastic shape right now and is clearly at 6ers practices; I don't know how to embed Instagram pictures on here but you can Google it pretty easily. 

Also Saric just earned the Euroleague MVP a couple months ago and is playing super competitive ball and learning instead of being on the dumpster fire of a roster the 6ers are putting out this year.  I think that's smart...what am I missing?

Too early to judge, I like that someone is taking the rules to their extreme conclusion.  It makes life interesting.

The hype over Ricky Rubio was WAAAAAAAY greater than for Saric and how has he turned out?  Rubio doesn't quite deserve my favorite nickname for him, "El Busto", but he's like a worse-shooting version of Rondo who can't pass or rebound quite as well.

Having said that, having the rights to Saric isn't a bad thing.  He could turn out to be a player.  But what are the odds of Saric being a lot better than MCW, who Philly just chucked over the side?

Mike

[D.o.s.]

I'm way to lazy to do it myself but I'd love to see somebody take on the fact that the media types who seem most in love with Hinkie's strategy appear to be the analytics crowd.  But I've never seen anyone actually crunch the numbers on whether what Hinkie is doing will lead to any statistically meaningful advantages.  Like how much of a correlation can you draw in NBA history between having one of the bottom two records in a season and getting a franchise-level star in the draft because of it.

Mike

Duncan's the easy one (obviously). Hakeem.

If you give me a barometer of 'franchise level' I can whip something up. It's a slow day for me.

[Quetzalcoatl]

The hype over Ricky Rubio was WAAAAAAAY greater than for Saric and how has he turned out?  Rubio doesn't quite deserve my favorite nickname for him, "El Busto", but he's like a worse-shooting version of Rondo who can't pass or rebound quite as well.

Having said that, having the rights to Saric isn't a bad thing.  He could turn out to be a player.  But what are the odds of Saric being a lot better than MCW, who Philly just chucked over the side?

Mike

Ricky Rubio is starting to look legit and he's only 24.  He's been really good this season since he's come back.

Also, look at Nikola Mirotic this year.  He's was hyped about the same as Saric and he's the #2 rookie after Wiggins easily.  He is really helping that Bulls team.  Europe isn't the bball backwater it once was

[PickNRoll]

I'm way to lazy to do it myself but I'd love to see somebody take on the fact that the media types who seem most in love with Hinkie's strategy appear to be the analytics crowd.  But I've never seen anyone actually crunch the numbers on whether what Hinkie is doing will lead to any statistically meaningful advantages.  Like how much of a correlation can you draw in NBA history between having one of the bottom two records in a season and getting a franchise-level star in the draft because of it.

Mike

One of my old fanposts looked at that question: what are the odds of finding a star in the draft?  It's not thorough or scientific, but it paints a picture.  The draft is a crapshoot, talent degrades rapidly.  I think it was 82games that did an incredibly detailed analysis of expected values in the draft.

http://www.celticsblog.com/2015/1/20/7863433/finding-the-next-star-big-man

[PickNRoll]

The hype over Ricky Rubio was WAAAAAAAY greater than for Saric and how has he turned out?  Rubio doesn't quite deserve my favorite nickname for him, "El Busto", but he's like a worse-shooting version of Rondo who can't pass or rebound quite as well.

Having said that, having the rights to Saric isn't a bad thing.  He could turn out to be a player.  But what are the odds of Saric being a lot better than MCW, who Philly just chucked over the side?

Mike

Ricky Rubio is starting to look legit and he's only 24.  He's been really good this season since he's come back.

Also, look at Nikola Mirotic this year.  He's was hyped about the same as Saric and he's the #2 rookie after Wiggins easily.  He is really helping that Bulls team.  Europe isn't the bball backwater it once was

I was a Rubio hater last year.  His shooting was Rondo-esque.  But unbelievably, he seems to have corrected his form somewhat and he looks a lot more natural shooting the ball since his injury.  Rondo should hire his shooting coach.