Happy trails to Hinkie's Power.

[oldtype]

The fundamental strategy of tanking is not flawed. Everyone does, including the Celtics.

Here's what was wrong with Hinkie's execution:

1. Perception matters: when you're super-tanking for multiple years and people start calling you a disgrace to the game, you can't just wave away those concerns as the ramblings of irrational oafs. When you turn a sports franchise into a naked value-maximizing machine for this length of time, there will inevitably be this kind of backlash from parties you depend on for your livelihood - fans, the league, your own owners. There has to be some sort of plan in place beforehand to manage this. The absence of such a plan was ultimately what cost him his job.

2. Relationships matter: just because you're in a position of leverage doesn't mean you should be trying to screw agents and other GMs at every turn. Hinkie of all people should be aware of the concept of repeat players, and when you ignore that, stuff like KJ McDaniels happens. It would have been interesting to see what sort of obstacles Philly under Hinkie would have faced if they ever attempted to go out and sign a big free agent or pull off a blockbuster trade. I anticipate that they would have been significant.

3. Flexibility matters: if you have the opportunity to sign Isaiah Thomas for peanuts, how about you just do that instead of routing him to the Celtics because you're not willing to do anything that increases the risk of you winning too many games. Even with Thomas, I'm sure Philly could have trotted out a bad enough team to stay safely within the 20~30 win range. Maybe that costs them a few ping pong balls, but you have to stay flexible and pursue every avenue to improvement.

At the end of the day it all comes down to this: it's fine to play for ping pong balls, but in order to play for ping pong balls for as long as Hinkie wanted to, you need to be willing to sacrifice a few here and there. No matter how theoretically sound a plan is, it will become infeasible once you take it to its purest, most inflexible extreme.

[D Dub]

The fundamental strategy of tanking is not flawed. Everyone does, including the Celtics.

Here's what was wrong with Hinkie's execution:

1. Perception matters: when you're super-tanking for multiple years and people start calling you a disgrace to the game, you can't just wave away those concerns as the ramblings of irrational oafs. When you turn a sports franchise into a naked value-maximizing machine for this length of time, there will inevitably be this kind of backlash from parties you depend on for your livelihood - fans, the league, your own owners. There has to be some sort of plan in place beforehand to manage this. The absence of such a plan was ultimately what cost him his job. 

Great point.  I feel a good example of this is the LA Lakers.  They are tanking hard this year but have a nice cover story (Kobe fair well tour) to at least distract people from the obvious. 

[SHAQATTACK]

Sooooo long

MR Stinky

[PhoSita]

1. Perception matters: when you're super-tanking for multiple years and people start calling you a disgrace to the game, you can't just wave away those concerns as the ramblings of irrational oafs. When you turn a sports franchise into a naked value-maximizing machine for this length of time, there will inevitably be this kind of backlash from parties you depend on for your livelihood - fans, the league, your own owners. There has to be some sort of plan in place beforehand to manage this. The absence of such a plan was ultimately what cost him his job.

Wholeheartedly agreed.


Jeff Van Gundy made a great point when talking to Zach Lowe yesterday -- Hinkie should have taken advantage of all of the media out there that was actually sympathetic to his strategy and viewpoint.  He could have done interviews with analytics-minded people, gotten his viewpoint out there.  He didn't need to wait until it was time to resign and then leak his 14 page resignation letter (assuming it was his camp that leaked it).

Yes, there was lots of bad PR out there against "The Process," but by adopting the "ignore the noise," "we know what we're doing," Bill Belichick attitude toward the media, he left himself especially vulnerable to public opinion becoming poisoned against him to the point that it'd threaten his job security, and that's what happened.

[hwangjini_1]

i think also you need to produce results, not simply assets. three years in and they are not winning at all, not even a sniff, not remotely, not even the hope of winning soon. even if every draft pick worked out, which they wont, then the total rebuild of this plan would seem to be 5-6 years to achieve perhaps a .500 record.

this team will not win many games for how many more years? i dont think hinkie sold his plan to the ownership by saying the sixers would suck eggs for 5-6 years, and then maybe become decent. i think he sold his plan by saying 2-3 years of suck followed by a team on the rise, a team lead with young exciting stars.

i dont think his plan delivered as promised. i think the crater he created was larger than expected. i think if hinkie's team had won 25 games this year, he would still be leading the sixers. if the team had shown improvement, he would be around today i believe.

also, by relying ONLY on draft picks you create only one avenue to success - luck in the draft. they havent had as much luck as they needed. repeated bottom finishes and no #1s. that means that the sixers have no other options for rebuilding right now. aside from sucking even longer. it is a one trick plan. a risky proposition.

say what you wish, but the leadership of the sixers disagreed with hinkie's results to date. they clearly stated that his plan, regardless of "logic" or whatever, failed. and they canned him.

do i think hinkie's plan is so remarkable and brilliant that other GMs will be lining up to copy it? no, i dont.

[celticsclay]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

[LarBrd33]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

its because we haven't at all seen how this will play out yet. This summer will be our first chance to see whether three years of tanking worked out.   Anyone who says otherwise is jumping the gun.  At this point we just have to wait and see if philly flipping the tank switch off will work.  Most people are saying it hasn't worked... Which is akin to someone building a plane, not yet taking it for a test flight, and people on the ground saying "it didn't fly".

[celticsclay]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

its because we haven't at all seen how this will play out yet. This summer will be our first chance to see whether three years of tanking worked out.   Anyone who says otherwise is jumping the gun.  At this point we just have to wait and see if philly flipping the tank switch off will work.  Most people are saying it hasn't worked... Which is akin to someone building a plane, not yet taking it for a test flight, and people on the ground saying "it didn't fly".

I'm not really sure anything will get resolved this summer (short of them signing Durant or something equally crazy). I think even the biggest supporters of their plan don't expect them to win more than 25-30 games next year right? So in reality we have a few more years to look forward to arguing about this stuff. I guess if the Lakers pick doesn't convey to them and the Lakers make some big free agent moves somehow that could hurt them and if they somehow end up with the 3rd pick that would also set them back. Either way though probably not a resolution in short term.

[PhoSita]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

I think the divide is simple -- some people choose not to judge Hinkie based on the on-court results so far because their perception is that the on-court results haven't really been a focus of what the Sixers have been doing.  It's been all about assets.

Others look at the lack of on-court improvement (as hwangjini does a couple posts up) and feel that it's an indictment of Hinkie's strategy, because three years into a rebuild the Sixers appear no closer to a team that can win basketball games than when they started (in fact, they may be farther away).

[SHAQATTACK]

Poor Mr Stinky .....

[celticsclay]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

I think the divide is simple -- some people choose not to judge Hinkie based on the on-court results so far because their perception is that the on-court results haven't really been a focus of what the Sixers have been doing.  It's been all about assets.

Others look at the lack of on-court improvement (as hwangjini does a couple posts up) and feel that it's an indictment of Hinkie's strategy, because three years into a rebuild the Sixers appear no closer to a team that can win basketball games than when they started (in fact, they may be farther away).

Again you are telling people how they think about the 76ers and projecting your own ideas. I don't care a lot about this years team, aside from some bad pr, I don't think it mattered if they won 8 or 28 games. They have won a less games than I would have liked, but it didn't alter my perception of their plan. I am not high on Okafor. I really doubt that Embiid ever plays meaningful moments in the NBA because I can't recall a guy ever not playing organized basketball for 2.5 years (lets not forget he didn't even finish his career at Kansas) and coming back to be a star.
I also am doubtful that Saric arrives as some sort of savior. It reminds me a lot of the Mirotic was talked about for many years before he came over here and now projects as a role player when he finally arrived.

The guy I like the most on their team is Noel and would really like to see him play more with better guards.

As I said in my previous post their path to being a real good team is very heavily tied to the lottery. If they get number 1 and 4 that is going to be pretty amazing. If they get just number 2 or 3, that is a lot less of an impressive haul.

I also am intrigued if mid tier free agents go their on overpays (like you mentioned Deng earlier). I find it hard to think an established veteran would sign there right now, but maybe I am wrong.
It seems like in recent times the younger reclamation projects like Derrick Williams, Stauskas, Thomas Robinson, Anthony Bennett (lottery picks looking to get minutes somewhere) haven't really panned out. Maybe that changes and the 76ers strike gold.

[LarBrd33]

These arguments really go nowhere. You have people that think Philly is doing a good job and have a high opinion of their assets. You have people that think the opposite. The same people keep saying the same things over and over and nobody's opinion has moved an inch. We could do 20 more pages of this and nobody would change their mind on anything related to philly.

its because we haven't at all seen how this will play out yet. This summer will be our first chance to see whether three years of tanking worked out.   Anyone who says otherwise is jumping the gun.  At this point we just have to wait and see if philly flipping the tank switch off will work.  Most people are saying it hasn't worked... Which is akin to someone building a plane, not yet taking it for a test flight, and people on the ground saying "it didn't fly".

I'm not really sure anything will get resolved this summer (short of them signing Durant or something equally crazy).

When you say something like that, I have to assume you don't understand at all what has gone on there.   They could have traded assets and built a more balanced team at any time.  They could have taken bostons offer of the Brooklyn pick and other players (Marcus Smart?) for okafor.  They could have traded away the rights to guys like saric for vet help.  They didn't do these things - not because they couldn't but because they didn't want to.   It made more sense to tank, see how the lotto played out, see what kind of options they have in free agency, and THEN address the needs of the team.

Stuff will get resolved.  Bank on it.

There's people here who feel like Philly should have immediately sold Okafor for pennies on a dollar to immediately address short term needs like guard help.  These people fundamentally do not understand this aspect of the NBA.

[MBunge]

Most people are saying it hasn't worked... Which is akin to someone building a plane, not yet taking it for a test flight, and people on the ground saying "it didn't fly".

Who is saying it hasn't worked?  You keep repeating this but virtually NO ONE is actually saying that.

People are criticizing Philly for being an embarrassment to the league.  They are.
They're criticizing Philly for being a Edited for profanity.  Please do not do it again.ization of sportsmanship.  They are.
They're criticizing them for sucking.  They do.
And they're criticizing them for not really doing that great a job of collecting assets for all their misery...which is an entirely defensible view.

No one is saying that Hinkie's plan hasn't worked because everyone realizes that if Philly gets lucky in this draft, they could be in much better shape very quickly.  What people are saying is that to subject players and fans to three years of some of the worst and most hopeless basketball in NBA history and STILL have the entire future of the franchise hinge on ping pong balls is a questionable gamble at best.  It's not science.  It's not analytics.  It's not smarts.  It's three years of suffering for a 70% chance Philly WON'T get the # 1 pick.

Mike

[MBunge]

They could have traded assets and built a more balanced team at any time. 

No they couldn't.  The values of Noel and Okafor are as low right as any time in their careers.  They couldn't get a plug nickel for anyone else currently on their roster.  They couldn't trade Embiid for a plug unless he passes a physical and not much more than that until he proves he can actually play a minute of NBA basketball without his body exploding.  No veteran player is going to want to sign with them if there's anyone else in the league offering the same money, or maybe even slightly less.

If they Lakers pick doesn't convey and Philly's pick is bumped down to #4, both of which are entirely possible, what exactly are they going to do this summer?  Trade the players they get with their two other firsts in the mid to late 20s for DeMarcus Cousins?

Mike

[LarBrd33]

Mike they have done a phenomenal job of collecting assets.  You keep saying otherwise.  It's weird.

You also just pointed out how bad they have been.  That was the point.

What I do agree with you about is that the method in which Philly acquired their bounty of assets has upset purists.  There's no debating that.  There's plenty of fans like yourself who are disgusted with how philly played the system.  I personally can't blame them.  The system encourages losing to acquire top level assets.  Philly did and now they are set up in perfect position for a quick turnaround. This infuriates some fans who feel it undermines the league.  So be it.  If it works, it works.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.    It will be fun to see if it works for them.