A deeper, detailed look inside the 76ers Tank machine and Sam Hinkie's strategy

[Moranis]

The Sixers don't even have the worst record in the league though.  In fact two teams are worse then they are including one in their own division. 

And let's look at their moves yesterday

rights to Akyol for McGee and 1st
McDaniels for Canaan and 2nd
Carter-Williams for Lakers 1st (top 5 protected)

1st trade clearly makes the team better this year and in the future
2nd trade is a wash on both accounts
3rd trade downgrades the team this year, but if the Lakers end up picking 6th could be a major future upgrade (for a guy everyone says is vastly overrated anyway)

So 3 trades, that do basically 3 different things for the current and future team. 

[fairweatherfan]

The Sixers don't even have the worst record in the league though.  In fact two teams are worse then they are including one in their own division. 

And let's look at their moves yesterday

rights to Akyol for McGee and 1st
McDaniels for Canaan and 2nd
Carter-Williams for Lakers 1st (top 5 protected)

1st trade clearly makes the team better this year and in the future
2nd trade is a wash on both accounts
3rd trade downgrades the team this year, but if the Lakers end up picking 6th could be a major future upgrade (for a guy everyone says is vastly overrated anyway)

So 3 trades, that do basically 3 different things for the current and future team.

McGee's not exactly known for bringing the winning basketball.  Here's what his new coach had to say about the kind of player McGee is: "I would prefer not to comment."  It could be that he just didn't want to get expectations too high for his improved roster, but I'm guessing he actually disagrees with your analysis and McGee is just a cap room rental.

[slamtheking]

Noel might be the best rookie defender ever

seriously?  did you just start following the sport or is this just missing the sarcasm font?

you'd have to make a hardsell to even say he's the best this year.   Smart is a prime example of someone I think is doing a better job on defense than Noel.  that's just this year.   there's a whole bunch of prior years where other rookies came in and made a bigger impact on D.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

Noel might be the best rookie defender ever

seriously?  did you just start following the sport or is this just missing the sarcasm font?

you'd have to make a hardsell to even say he's the best this year.   Smart is a prime example of someone I think is doing a better job on defense than Noel.  that's just this year.   there's a whole bunch of prior years where other rookies came in and made a bigger impact on D.

He's a significantly more valuable defender than Smart and it isn't particularly close.

He's an elite rim protector averaging a steal and a half a game with the 4th highest Defensive box plus/minus in the entire league. You're high if you don't think he is hands down the best defensive rookie at least since Duncan.

He's as advertised offensively, which means terrible but defensively he's been incredible for a rookie.

[BitterJim]

Noel might be the best rookie defender ever

seriously?  did you just start following the sport or is this just missing the sarcasm font?

you'd have to make a hardsell to even say he's the best this year.   Smart is a prime example of someone I think is doing a better job on defense than Noel.  that's just this year.   there's a whole bunch of prior years where other rookies came in and made a bigger impact on D.

He's a significantly more valuable defender than Smart and it isn't particularly close.

He's an elite rim protector averaging a steal and a half a game with the 4th highest Defensive box plus/minus in the entire league. You're high if you don't think he is hands down the best defensive rookie at least since Duncan.

He's as advertised offensively, which means terrible but defensively he's been incredible for a rookie.

You honestly think he's a better defender than Anthony Davis was his rookie year?

[D.o.s.]

Agreed. Noel is good defensively, but Davis iss on another planet.

[MBunge]

Noel might be the best rookie defender ever

seriously?  did you just start following the sport or is this just missing the sarcasm font?

you'd have to make a hardsell to even say he's the best this year.   Smart is a prime example of someone I think is doing a better job on defense than Noel.  that's just this year.   there's a whole bunch of prior years where other rookies came in and made a bigger impact on D.

He's a significantly more valuable defender than Smart and it isn't particularly close.

He's an elite rim protector averaging a steal and a half a game with the 4th highest Defensive box plus/minus in the entire league. You're high if you don't think he is hands down the best defensive rookie at least since Duncan.

He's as advertised offensively, which means terrible but defensively he's been incredible for a rookie.

He's been very good defensively but nothing amazing.  Marc Gasol was good defensively as a rookie as well.  As bad as he looks on offense, though, Noel is going to have to get about 3 times better defensively to be an elite player and then he'll still have to be surrounded with the right sort of team.

Mike

[MBunge]

I guess the debate lies around whether or not you think it's okay to go through hell, to get to heaven.

And that's the logical and emotional flaw of the tanking argument.  It's all built on the assumption, no matter how much it is denied, that "tank now = great later."  But the evidence shows that the most likely result from Hinkie's mega-tank is still failure.  Failure being defined as not winning a title, since that the whole justification for tanking in the first place.

Mike

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

Noel might be the best rookie defender ever

seriously?  did you just start following the sport or is this just missing the sarcasm font?

you'd have to make a hardsell to even say he's the best this year.   Smart is a prime example of someone I think is doing a better job on defense than Noel.  that's just this year.   there's a whole bunch of prior years where other rookies came in and made a bigger impact on D.

He's a significantly more valuable defender than Smart and it isn't particularly close.

He's an elite rim protector averaging a steal and a half a game with the 4th highest Defensive box plus/minus in the entire league. You're high if you don't think he is hands down the best defensive rookie at least since Duncan.

He's as advertised offensively, which means terrible but defensively he's been incredible for a rookie.

You honestly think he's a better defender than Anthony Davis was his rookie year?

Yes.. Anthony Davis jumped all over the place, blocked a lot of shots and was a mediocre defensive player. Nerlens is clearly the better rookie defensively.

He's already got a better opponent's FG% at the rim this year than Davis and he's younger.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

I guess the debate lies around whether or not you think it's okay to go through hell, to get to heaven.

And that's the logical and emotional flaw of the tanking argument.  It's all built on the assumption, no matter how much it is denied, that "tank now = great later."  But the evidence shows that the most likely result from Hinkie's mega-tank is still failure.  Failure being defined as not winning a title, since that the whole justification for tanking in the first place.

Mike

Wasn't a failure in 2007 when the Celtics all-out tanked...

[MBunge]

I guess the debate lies around whether or not you think it's okay to go through hell, to get to heaven.

And that's the logical and emotional flaw of the tanking argument.  It's all built on the assumption, no matter how much it is denied, that "tank now = great later."  But the evidence shows that the most likely result from Hinkie's mega-tank is still failure.  Failure being defined as not winning a title, since that the whole justification for tanking in the first place.

Mike

Wasn't a failure in 2007 when the Celtics all-out tanked...

What are you talking about?  Boston had the 2nd worst record in the league but wound up with the 5th pick in a draft that everybody said had only 2 franchise players.  That is the very definition of a tank utterly failing. 

Mike

[chambers]

I guess the debate lies around whether or not you think it's okay to go through hell, to get to heaven.

And that's the logical and emotional flaw of the tanking argument.  It's all built on the assumption, no matter how much it is denied, that "tank now = great later."  But the evidence shows that the most likely result from Hinkie's mega-tank is still failure.  Failure being defined as not winning a title, since that the whole justification for tanking in the first place.

Mike

No one is saying that heaven is guaranteed. We are saying that the evidence proves that if you want to win a championship in the NBA, your best chance will come via a player pick in the top 5 of the NBA draft.

The evidence does prove, as you say, that more top 5 picks don't come near a championship than do.
But guess what else? More championships are won by teams with their own top 5 pick than those that are not.  <<<this is the key point you aren't processing.

What are common themes between and among NBA championship teams?
What specific characteristics do NBA title winning teams share if any? Or is it all just random ?

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

I guess the debate lies around whether or not you think it's okay to go through hell, to get to heaven.

And that's the logical and emotional flaw of the tanking argument.  It's all built on the assumption, no matter how much it is denied, that "tank now = great later."  But the evidence shows that the most likely result from Hinkie's mega-tank is still failure.  Failure being defined as not winning a title, since that the whole justification for tanking in the first place.

Mike

Wasn't a failure in 2007 when the Celtics all-out tanked...

What are you talking about?  Boston had the 2nd worst record in the league but wound up with the 5th pick in a draft that everybody said had only 2 franchise players.  That is the very definition of a tank utterly failing. 

Mike

And used that pick as ammunition to trade for the big 3... Which you conveniently leave off as an option for tanking teams.

Every plan but one is destined to fail for every team every year, not just tanking. That's math.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

Agreed. Noel is good defensively, but Davis iss on another planet.

Oh he's unreal now, but as a defensive player his rookie year that was much more likely to be because he jumped out of position and landed on another planet.

AD now is not the same as he was in his rookie year. His highlights were way better than his overall defensive impact.

[TheTruthFot18]

Went to tankathon.com and saw that if the ping pong balls get the Lakers outside of the top 4 (pr 5?) that pick goes to Philly via the MCW trade Thursday from PHX.

So they could possibly get two top 5 picks?? 

I'd change my mind on their strategy if they were able to get Russell then Johnson.

PG
Russell
S. Johnson
Noel
Embiid

Not a champion in 2016 but after that, geez.