@celticsclay
Nice post.
With hindsight, I don't like this trade for Philly. Not only because it is very likely that they will get less than they had hoped for, but mainly because there is a limit to how much you can compromise your present in search for future assets. Prolonging extreme tanking over four (and counting) seasons is counterproductive. MCW (and KJ) might not be great, but he would have been better than McConnell. They also lost in chemistry by trading him. Let alone further alienating their fans. Finally, note that both MCW and KJ were playing quite well before being traded.
In retrospect, the MCW + KJ trade made it clear that Hinkie intended to continue making high risk/high reward trades (starting with Jrue Holiday in 2013), and contributed to his demise.
Overall, I think that Philly the tanking factory made sense in the first two, maybe three seasons, but they would have been better off if they had stopped the extreme tanking in the summer of 2016 and got a couple of decent guards (granted Bayless got injured, but he wasn't a great option for PG to start with. And Simmons playing at PG in his first rookie year had tanking written all over it).
Even with a couple of better guards, they would still be a lottery team anyway, and it would have been better for developing their young talents. There wasn't much to lose by not tanking to the extreme this season. I don't think they will get anywhere, unless they accept they will have to go through an intermediary phase in their rebuilding being a ca. 30 win team (like LAL this season).
Speaking from an egoistic POV, it's good for the C's that a historically good franchise is stuck in this situation; the longer the Colangelos stay the better for us.