Author Topic: Noel to the bench  (Read 26656 times)

0 Members and 0 Guests are viewing this topic.

Re: Noel to the bench
« Reply #120 on: November 22, 2015, 07:57:09 PM »

Offline tazzmaniac

  • Satch Sanders
  • *********
  • Posts: 9021
  • Tommy Points: 583
I don't get the debate here.  Philly has a roster balance issue (just one of many issues).  this is a reasonable way to work around it.  We need a center.  Noel seems to want to play center.  I would be happy to give him a try for the right deal.

If Noel and Okafor can't play together, that's a problem when you spent lottery picks on both of them.  And if they can't play together, neither will likely be able to play with their other lottery pick, Embiid, if he ever gets healthy.  That's a problem.

And by moving Noel to the bench, not only is Philly telling other GMs that Okafor and Noel can't coexist, they're telling Noel that he's second banana to Okafor.  So they simultaneously hurt Noel's trade value and gave him extra incentive to seek greener pastures.

And the is being done in a year when Philly still isn't trying to win games.

This whole thing is turning into an interesting test of psychology.  Some people absolutely fell in love with what Hinkie is doing as the ultimate example of analytic-type thinking vs. traditional sports philosophies.  And since they think it's a really smart thing, they also assume Hinkie is a really smart guy.  So then everything Hinkie does gets excused and defended and rationalized because a smart guy wouldn't do anything stupid, would he?

Mike
What did Hinkie do that was stupid?

If you count the trade that netted them Noel as the start, Hinkie is now well into year three of his plan and Philly is the worst team in the league by far.

1.  He's had three lottery picks and picked three guys who all play the same position.

2.  He's aggressively stripped the team of any talent outside those three picks and the rights to Saric.

3.  He's done nothing with huge amounts of cap space.

4.  He's creating a terrible reputation around the league.

Other than that, he's a genius!

Frankly, the huge number of other teams in the East that were also horrible have served as a sort of camouflage for Hinkie.  It seems as though he's no longer going to be able to hide.

Mike

1. Noel was acquired via a great draft day trade.  Hinkie's 1st official lottery pick was MCW at #11 in the same draft.  Embiid, even with his injury, and Okafor were the best players available and both have star potential.  Taking the best player available regardless of position is the best draft strategy.  You can always trade young talent. 

2. Hinkie's strategy is to bottom out for multiple seasons so of course he got rid of unwanted talent.  However he got a very good return for that talent.     

Jrue Holliday ->  Noel + Saric + Philly 2017      (via two good trades)
Thad Young ->  Miami 1st           
MCW ->   Lakers 1st 

3.  Hinkie did use their available salary cap in a couple short-term salary dump trades to acquire the OKC 1st and the 2018 Sacramento 1st.  He didn't take on any bad deals so the Sixer's have lots of available cap space next off season. 

4.  At this point in their rebuild process, reputation doesn't matter much.  If Hinkie's strategy produces a star or two to build around, their reputation will change quickly. 

You may not like his strategy of going all in to get star(s) to rebuild around but the moves Hinkie has made so far are consistent with that strategy.

That a strategy exists does not make it a good one.  To date, after three drafts, three off seasons and two regular seasons, the 76ers are not just worse than they were when Hinkie started, they're the worst team in the league and will soon be within spitting distance of worst team in NBA history.  And for all that sucking, they've only got one true franchise LeBron/Durant/Duncan/Shaq player and he's had huge injury issues and by the start of next season will have not played competitive basketball in about 2 1/2 years.

Having a few extra first in the late teens or 20s is going to do NOTHING about that.

EVERYONE is going to have cap space, thanks to the new TV deal.

He's DESTROYING a promising coach by saddling him with so many losses that no player will be able to take him seriously.

The Lakers pick this year is top 3 protected and the Lakers are doing everything they can to make sure Philly doesn't get it.

Now, if Philly gets lucky in the next draft and grabs a top 3 pick themselves and then the Lakers pick at 4 or 5, that could dramatically improve their position.  But if you are starting the FOURTH FREAKING YEAR of your rebuilding process and THE ENTIRE THING STILL COMPLETELY HINGES ON LUCK, I think that suggests your strategy is somewhat lacking.

Mike
Rebuilds take time and luck.  The Clippers would still be a perennial suck fest if they hadn't lucked out with the NBA stopping the Paul to Lakers trade.  When was the last time the Kings or Wolves made the playoffs?  Bad teams tend to stay bad for a long time because they have poor management that doesn't have a strategy. 

Hinkie said from the start that the Sixers rebuild would take several bad seasons.  No one should be surprised about that or expect the Sixers to be winning after just two seasons.  What he's done is acquire talent and draft picks at the cost of a few losses. 

You complain about Hinkie's strategy so what should they have done instead?  They didn't have a couple past-their-prime stars to use to fleece a desperate owner and stupid GM.  They had already tried trading for a young star but that blew up in their faces.  Keeping their mediocre talent was just going to make them a 30 win team for the foreseeable future. 


Re: Noel to the bench
« Reply #121 on: November 22, 2015, 09:30:35 PM »

Offline Fan from VT

  • NCE
  • Antoine Walker
  • ****
  • Posts: 4205
  • Tommy Points: 777
I don't get the debate here.  Philly has a roster balance issue (just one of many issues).  this is a reasonable way to work around it.  We need a center.  Noel seems to want to play center.  I would be happy to give him a try for the right deal.

If Noel and Okafor can't play together, that's a problem when you spent lottery picks on both of them.  And if they can't play together, neither will likely be able to play with their other lottery pick, Embiid, if he ever gets healthy.  That's a problem.

And by moving Noel to the bench, not only is Philly telling other GMs that Okafor and Noel can't coexist, they're telling Noel that he's second banana to Okafor.  So they simultaneously hurt Noel's trade value and gave him extra incentive to seek greener pastures.

And the is being done in a year when Philly still isn't trying to win games.

This whole thing is turning into an interesting test of psychology.  Some people absolutely fell in love with what Hinkie is doing as the ultimate example of analytic-type thinking vs. traditional sports philosophies.  And since they think it's a really smart thing, they also assume Hinkie is a really smart guy.  So then everything Hinkie does gets excused and defended and rationalized because a smart guy wouldn't do anything stupid, would he?

Mike
What did Hinkie do that was stupid?

If you count the trade that netted them Noel as the start, Hinkie is now well into year three of his plan and Philly is the worst team in the league by far.

1.  He's had three lottery picks and picked three guys who all play the same position.

2.  He's aggressively stripped the team of any talent outside those three picks and the rights to Saric.

3.  He's done nothing with huge amounts of cap space.

4.  He's creating a terrible reputation around the league.

Other than that, he's a genius!

Frankly, the huge number of other teams in the East that were also horrible have served as a sort of camouflage for Hinkie.  It seems as though he's no longer going to be able to hide.

Mike

1. Noel was acquired via a great draft day trade.  Hinkie's 1st official lottery pick was MCW at #11 in the same draft.  Embiid, even with his injury, and Okafor were the best players available and both have star potential.  Taking the best player available regardless of position is the best draft strategy.  You can always trade young talent. 

2. Hinkie's strategy is to bottom out for multiple seasons so of course he got rid of unwanted talent.  However he got a very good return for that talent.     

Jrue Holliday ->  Noel + Saric + Philly 2017      (via two good trades)
Thad Young ->  Miami 1st           
MCW ->   Lakers 1st 

3.  Hinkie did use their available salary cap in a couple short-term salary dump trades to acquire the OKC 1st and the 2018 Sacramento 1st.  He didn't take on any bad deals so the Sixer's have lots of available cap space next off season. 

4.  At this point in their rebuild process, reputation doesn't matter much.  If Hinkie's strategy produces a star or two to build around, their reputation will change quickly. 

You may not like his strategy of going all in to get star(s) to rebuild around but the moves Hinkie has made so far are consistent with that strategy.

That a strategy exists does not make it a good one.  To date, after three drafts, three off seasons and two regular seasons, the 76ers are not just worse than they were when Hinkie started, they're the worst team in the league and will soon be within spitting distance of worst team in NBA history.  And for all that sucking, they've only got one true franchise LeBron/Durant/Duncan/Shaq player and he's had huge injury issues and by the start of next season will have not played competitive basketball in about 2 1/2 years.

Having a few extra first in the late teens or 20s is going to do NOTHING about that.

EVERYONE is going to have cap space, thanks to the new TV deal.

He's DESTROYING a promising coach by saddling him with so many losses that no player will be able to take him seriously.

The Lakers pick this year is top 3 protected and the Lakers are doing everything they can to make sure Philly doesn't get it.

Now, if Philly gets lucky in the next draft and grabs a top 3 pick themselves and then the Lakers pick at 4 or 5, that could dramatically improve their position.  But if you are starting the FOURTH FREAKING YEAR of your rebuilding process and THE ENTIRE THING STILL COMPLETELY HINGES ON LUCK, I think that suggests your strategy is somewhat lacking.

Mike
Rebuilds take time and luck.  The Clippers would still be a perennial suck fest if they hadn't lucked out with the NBA stopping the Paul to Lakers trade.  When was the last time the Kings or Wolves made the playoffs?  Bad teams tend to stay bad for a long time because they have poor management that doesn't have a strategy. 

Hinkie said from the start that the Sixers rebuild would take several bad seasons.  No one should be surprised about that or expect the Sixers to be winning after just two seasons.  What he's done is acquire talent and draft picks at the cost of a few losses. 

You complain about Hinkie's strategy so what should they have done instead?  They didn't have a couple past-their-prime stars to use to fleece a desperate owner and stupid GM.  They had already tried trading for a young star but that blew up in their faces.  Keeping their mediocre talent was just going to make them a 30 win team for the foreseeable future.

I will say, if anyone every has said that Championships are the ultimate goal or that Championships are the only things that matter, then they have no disagreement with Hinkie. After all, people generally forget futility as soon as success happens, and as soon as you win a championship, you can cling to that for many many years. And since there has been a relatively recent depreciation of general goodness in favor of all-or-nothing title winning, teams like Indy, Houston, Atlanta of the last decade are totally overlooked. So why not try to land a Durant-level talent (or two) to try to be a title contender for a decade if it only costs 3 seasons? No long term penalty for being a temporary laughing stock.