Happy trails to Hinkie's Power.

[LarBrd33]

 Hinkie had led the franchise to a point where its future is STILL entirely dependent on a large number of things that might, could, possibly, potentially, maybe happen at some undefined point in the future...as long as nothing else bad happens.

And in this respect the Sixers are like virtually every other team in the league.  Rebuilding is dependent on a million variables outside of the control of the GM no matter what form it takes.

Virtually every other team aside from the fact that they started as a team with no cap space, missing draft picks and no star prospects. 

And at this point, they have oodles of draft picks, 80 million in cap space, possibly two top 5 picks (and 50% chance at Simmons/Ingram), a potential star in Okafor (or a significant trade chip), a potential star in Saric (if we consider smart a potential star), a possible future DPOY candidate in Noel... And the great unknown in soon-to-be-cleared Joel Embiid.

That's not the same as every other team.

Bottom line that most are in denial about:  There were tangible benefits to the shameless tank job. The system encourages losing as a means to land stars - Hinkie understood that even if the max chance a prospect becomes a superstar is 10%, he needed to put the team in position to get them.  There's other ways to successfully build a winner, obviously... But thanks to the 3 year tank job, Philly is in the best position they have been in since arguably the 1980s - including the flukey Iverson teams.

[PhoSita]

Hinkie has long suffered from "smartest guy in the room" syndrome, and it's part of the reason he's at his demise.

You can't pick three centers in a row with three straight top 5 picks, none of whom can play together, and expect to make progress.

I'd argue he wasn't trying to make progress in terms of the product on the floor.  That team is still in the larval stage.

Reading through some of Hinkie's letter, and listening to him on the Lowe Post a couple days ago, it seems to me Hinkie's problem is rigid adherence to principle, i.e. "We will be misunderstood and that's OK; this is a long term process," without even giving lip service to maintaining the appearance of trying to follow a strategy aimed at incrementally improving the product on the floor.

What Hinkie needed was an Assistant GM who could manage the PR stuff, maintain relationships with agents, and advise Hinkie on ways to tinker with the peripherals of the roster so it presented better to the casual fan and the media without compromising his bigger goals.

Instead, Philly lost its stomach for "The Process" and decided to bring in people above Hinkie.  The sort of move a perpetually downtrodden and dysfunctional franchise makes.

[PhoSita]

Virtually every other team aside from the fact that they started as a team with no cap space, missing draft picks and no star prospects. 

And at this point, they have oodles of draft picks, 80 million in cap space, possibly two top 5 picks (and 50% chance at Simmons/Ingram), a potential star in Okafor (or a significant trade chip), a potential star in Saric (if we consider smart a potential star), a possible future DPOY candidate in Noel... And the great unknown in soon-to-be-cleared Joel Embiid.

That's not the same as every other team.

True, Hinkie has set up the Sixers with an abundance of all of the raw materials for building a team.  Now they actually have to build a team.

This is why it's so silly that they fire him now, even as the team is challenging its own record for futility in regular season record.


Regardless, the point is, every franchise is subject to uncertainty.  The Sixers are not alone in that. 

Every path you take to contention is more likely to end in failure than success.  It doesn't matter if you prioritize free agency, the draft, trades, or a mixture of all three.

Hinkie's major failing here in the eyes of many is that he didn't do a good enough job of maintaining the appearance of trying to incrementally improve, even if that wouldn't have actually made a difference in terms of reaching that ultimate goal.

[LarBrd33]

Hinkie has long suffered from "smartest guy in the room" syndrome, and it's part of the reason he's at his demise.

You can't pick three centers in a row with three straight top 5 picks, none of whom can play together, and expect to make progress.

I'd argue he wasn't trying to make progress in terms of the product on the floor.  That team is still in the larval stage.

Read through some of Hinkie's letter, and listening to him on the Lowe Post a couple days ago, it seems to me Hinkie's problem is rigid adherence to principle, i.e. "We will be misunderstood and that's OK; this is a long term process," without even giving lip service to maintaining the appearance of trying to follow a strategy aimed at incrementally improving the product on the floor.

What Hinkie needed was an Assistant GM who could manage the PR stuff, maintain relationships with agents, and advise Hinkie on ways to tinker with the peripherals of the roster so it presented better to the casual fan and the media without compromising his bigger goals.

Instead, Philly lost its stomach for "The Process" and decided to bring in people above Hinkie.  The sort of move a perpetually downtrodden and dysfunctional franchise makes.

Did Philly lose their stomach for the process all the way to a 10 win season contributing to the process ?

Had they genuinely lost their stomach for it, they would have immediately traded Okafor for a guard, traded the first rounder for a vet, traded the laker pick, traded the rights to saric, and tried their darnedest to be as competitive as possible.

They didn't do that because the guys they brought in quickly realized hinkie was right in waiting until the summer.  I strongly believe they would have ended the "tank" phase this summer regardless of who was brought in.  It was time.  They would have ended it last summer, but opted to give embiid a bone graft and decided to push the tank job to the limits. Good for them... They now have another guaranteed top 4 pick in this draft to add for their troubles.

[PhoSita]

I will not be surprised if Brent Brown will be fired by the end of the season.
At this point he is associated with losing.

I think "associated with losing" is a key phrase in all this because it seems to be what is suddenly motivating ownership. They lost their stomach for their plan.

Philly ownership is William H Macy in Fargo.

That and they are losing a lot of money right now from what I understand.

Even with the cheap roster their revenues have absolutely plummeted to incredibly low levels. Now I'm sure revenue sharing makes up for that, but this is another hedge fund/venture capitalist ownership group. They look at things relative to what they could be.

If they signed off on Hinkie's plan -- and it sounds like they did -- then they either knew that things were going to be this bad revenue-wise and they signed off anyway, or they are amazingly stupid and naive and thought they'd tank for two or three years, everything would go their way, and they'd have three no-doubt young superstars bringing in the fans by now.

[Lucky17]

Hinkie did a fine job of collecting draft picks. Still remains to be seen how good he was at using them. And the jury on that may not be out until after Philly hires a new GM to replace the guy who's going to replace Hinkie.

I think Hinkie did a less good job leveraging cap space and finding hidden gems. I find it ironic that Hinkie's best "diamond in the rough" was a guy he'd originally passed on, and then had to desperately scramble to sign. He traded away Ish Smith -- exactly the type of player he should have been searching for -- only to see the Sixers reacquire him for multiple second rounders. [Good thing Hinkie had stockpiled those.]

Unfortunately for Hinkie, a GM cannot grind the roster forever to continually accumulate assets. After some point, you have to start cashing in, and move towards competing. And to me, this appears to be why Hinkie is no longer GM. To borrow another metaphor, he did a decent job buying the groceries, but someone else definitely has to do the cooking.

Hinkie could win trades when short term winning wasn't a priority. He couldn't do more than promise a long-term vision that never seemed to get closer.

[PhoSita]

Did Philly lose their stomach for the process all the way to a 10 win season contributing to the process ?

Well, either they lost their stomach for it and caved to outside pressure ...

OR

All along the plan was to have Hinkie institute this tanking plan, go through a few years of pain, and then axe Hinkie at the end of the third or fourth year when things look bleak but the team is set up to make a major transformation.

Pretty Machiavellian, if that was the plan.

[LarBrd33]

Virtually every other team aside from the fact that they started as a team with no cap space, missing draft picks and no star prospects. 

And at this point, they have oodles of draft picks, 80 million in cap space, possibly two top 5 picks (and 50% chance at Simmons/Ingram), a potential star in Okafor (or a significant trade chip), a potential star in Saric (if we consider smart a potential star), a possible future DPOY candidate in Noel... And the great unknown in soon-to-be-cleared Joel Embiid.

That's not the same as every other team.

True, Hinkie has set up the Sixers with an abundance of all of the raw materials for building a team.  Now they actually have to build a team.

This is why it's so silly that they fire him now, even as the team is challenging its own record for futility in regular season record.

Well first of all, didn't Hinkie resign?  Nonetheless, even if you believe he was fired, I don't see how that's silly.  Hinkie did what he set out to do - give the team every possible chance to land stats via the draft.  Thanks to phase 1 of the process, they now have oodles of valuable assets. Who knows if he's the right guy to handle the next phase.  It sounds like Jerry colangelo is on the same page and understands the value of the assets.  I don't think you should expect the team to trade Okafor for a late 1st and sell off the rights to saric for a 2nd rounder.   They have what they have. 

It's actually better for the team's free agent prospects to be divorced from hinkie.  Players think it's a culture dedicated to losing.  Agents hate hinkie for not signing any of their clients.  Divorcing from hinkie allows the team to sell agents/players on their new post-hinkie culture.  It also will encourage new trade offers from teams who had soured on dealing with hinkie.  Perhaps Hinkie himself realized the team would be better off without him as they stepped into the next phase.   Maybe that's why he stepped down.

[Lucky17]

Also, any coincidence that Hinkie steps down exactly four months after Colangelo was brought in?

[LarBrd33]

Did Philly lose their stomach for the process all the way to a 10 win season contributing to the process ?

Well, either they lost their stomach for it and caved to outside pressure ...

OR

All along the plan was to have Hinkie institute this tanking plan, go through a few years of pain, and then axe Hinkie at the end of the third or fourth year when things look bleak but the team is set up to make a major transformation.

Pretty Machiavellian, if that was the plan.

Generally the good soldiers doing the tanking don't survive to see the team succeed.  Byron Scott set out to do everything possible to help the lakers keep their top 3 protected pick.  I sure as heck don't expect him to be coaching the team long term.

[LarBrd33]

Also, any coincidence that Hinkie steps down exactly four months after Colangelo was brought in?

is it a coincidence that hinkie steps down exactly when Philly locks in the best odds at the top pick this summer? 

He stayed long enough to ensure the tank job was fulfilled.  Time to move on to phase 2.

[PhoSita]

Did Philly lose their stomach for the process all the way to a 10 win season contributing to the process ?

Well, either they lost their stomach for it and caved to outside pressure ...

OR

All along the plan was to have Hinkie institute this tanking plan, go through a few years of pain, and then axe Hinkie at the end of the third or fourth year when things look bleak but the team is set up to make a major transformation.

Pretty Machiavellian, if that was the plan.

Generally the good soldiers doing the tanking don't survive to see the team succeed.  Byron Scott set out to do everything possible to help the lakers keep their top 3 protected pick.  I sure as heck don't expect him to be coaching the team long term.

I think it's a little different when we're talking about coaching.

Byron Scott did more than just captain a sinking ship.  He actively sabotaged it, and probably hurt the franchise's relationships with its most valuable player assets.

[LarBrd33]

People love to bring up OKC as a comparison.  Well, the Thunder had a three-year rebuild where they only outright tanked for one year.  After year three, however, they had Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka and Jeff Green.  After tanking as hard as they could for three years, Philly doesn't have anyone as good as Durant.  They don't have anyone as good as Westbrook.  They don't have anyone as good as Harden.  They don't have a wing player as good as Green.  They have a couple of bugs who might be better than Ibaka but who can't play together.  And then they have a bunch of question marks.

Well said.

Well said, but misguided.  The jury is still out on embiid and saric.  Philly has a strong chance to end up with either Simmons or Ingram.  There's a 45% they will also have pick 4 or 5.   There's also a pretty reasonable chance they will move Okafor for an equal talent at a different position.

On a scale of 1-10, how shocked would you be if the Brooklyn pick ended up 5th and ainge traded all of our 2016 picks for Okafor ?  Knowing what he offered for Winslow and the reality that we don't actually have roster spots for all those picks would you honestly be all that surprised ?  Something like 5, 16, 26 and 31 for Okafor.  Philly replaces their undrafted d-leaguers with some tangible prospects.

And this is why I've consistently said that the team would let the tank ride until the offseason and re evaluate in the summer. Do they have a Durant and Westbrook yet?  No probably not, but they might have a full lineup of big name prospects within a few short months.  This is what the majority of this forum (and apparently some Philly fans) fail to understand. 

The majority of the folks on this board understand what Philly has done perfectly fine.  You are the one in denial.

Three years into the most aggressive and longest tanking effort in league history, Hinkie had led the franchise to a point where its future is STILL entirely dependent on a large number of things that might, could, possibly, potentially, maybe happen at some undefined point in the future...as long as nothing else bad happens.

Under the standards of the Hinkie-defenders, what NBA GM can ever be criticized?  Even Billy King did what he did to try and win a title and most people thought there was a good chance it would work.

Mike

It took Ainge about 4-5 years. Think back to 2007. Ainge had been GM since 2003. By the spring of 2007, how many Celtics fans had turned on Ainge, how many considered him a thorough failure? A lot. What kind of future did it look like we had? Promising, if the ping pong balls went our way. When they didn't, what kind of future did it look like we had? The day after the lottery, was Ainge's stock as a GM higher, lower, or the same as Hinkie's stock was as of yesterday?

I'd say it was higher.  Maybe not by much but it was higher.   Despite the woes of '06-07, Ainge's track record was already better that what Hinkie has/had.

Obviously, there was a HUGE letdown in those days right after the '07 lottery failure and I remember people around here being in scramble mode about what to do next.  Shawn Marion?  Rashard Lewis?  Maybe trade Pierce.

However, they still had some young assets that they were developing (Jefferson, Allen, West,  G. Green (some thought)) that people felt good about & they still had Pierce, which is a big trump card on anything that Philly currently has on their roster.  Plus, they still had the #5 pick.

Ainge took over a team with two all-stars.   Philly was in rough shape when Hinkie started this process.

It could still fail, but I'm still very interested to see how the process turns out in a few years.  Phase 1 is clearly over.  Now they need to start building a team with all those golden eggs.

I'm not sure Phase 1 is really over.  They could very well have two top 5 picks this year which would be a result of Phase 1.

I'm also not so sure I'll consider anything there to be golden eggs yet.

The phase where they do everything in their power to shamelessly lose is definitely over.  It was going to be over anyways, though.  The team literally didn't sign a single vet this previous summer. They filled the roster with d leaguers to maximize the tank.  At this point with the influx of talent from the draft, saric and possibly embiid, they would be wise to start building a winning culture.  No more intentional losing.

[PhoSita]

Well first of all, didn't Hinkie resign?  Nonetheless, even if you believe he was fired, I don't see how that's silly.  Hinkie did what he set out to do - give the team every possible chance to land stats via the draft.  Thanks to phase 1 of the process, they now have oodles of valuable assets. Who knows if he's the right guy to handle the next phase.

It sounds like Hinkie resigned because they let him know they were bringing in people above him to basically do his job.  At best, he was getting demoted, at worst, he would be made obsolete.

So, he wasn't fired, but he wasn't NOT fired.


As to the "who knows if he's the guy" thing, I just think if you hire a guy based on the strength of his vision for how to manage a rebuilding process, and he does a good job in the first phase of that plan -- in this case, acquire assets -- it behooves you to let him see out that plan. 

It's like hiring a guy to completely renovate a piece of land and then firing him after he does the hard work of demolishing the existing building, leveling the ground, laying the foundation, and procuring all of the necessary building materials.

But perhaps his apparent failings in properly taking into account the human side of the business, and his disregard for the magnitude of problems caused by drafting multiple players at the same position, eroded their confidence that he would do a good enough job in turning the assets into a team.

I still would've just told him to hire some assistant GMs with more knowledge in those areas and allowed him to continue to architect the rebuild, but that's me.

I don't doubt that he has fans around the league for what he's done.  He'll get hired on somewhere and probably get another shot at a GM job eventually.

[tankcity!]

What is the main argument on this topic. I don't even get it anymore at this point.