A letter leaked to the media on Wednesday evening unceremoniously heralded the resignation of Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Sam Hinkie and the end of The Process.
There is almost no end to the amount of takes that have been written and will continue to be written about the past few seasons of the 76ers. There should be even more. Since 2013, the Sixers have looked, from the outside, like a sea of ignorance which managed to cull but a bucket of knowledge (and wins and players with any true NBA potential or upside).
So much to say about the draft picks, the constant trades, the resistance to fostering any player who isn’t either a minimum-deal, injured, or stashed overseas for a full season. Like putting an entire franchise in a deprivation chamber and leaving them there for years, the outside noise seemed to amount to disdain and little more. Until the NBA stepped in.
If his process achieved little else, let it always be remembered that what Hinkie did was of a magnitude that Adam Silver himself was forced to kneel before the Colangelo throne and request assistance. That’s absolutely huge. A general manager of a sports franchise did something so radical and detrimental to the public perception of completion in sport that the guy who stands as the figuredhead and shot-caller for the entire league that one franchise is but a small part of, had to go to Jerry Colangelo.
It’s fun and it’s dramatic and it probably isn’t a perfectly accurate portrayal, but it happened. Philadelphia cratered. Heading into Friday’s matchup with the New York Knicks, the Sixers have just 10 wins to go with 68 losses and just four games left to play this season. 10 wins in 78 games. Over the past three seasons Philadelphia has won a grand total of 47 games. They have played 242 games.
While the 76ers ownership seemed to have an incredible amount of patience with The Process, it became clear that all the patience had worn thin. Someone, either Silver or one of the principal owners of the Philadelphia team, Josh Harris, was tabbed as the initiator of a conversation between Jerry Colangelo and Harris. Soon after, Colangelo was announced as the new Chairman of Basketball Operations. The writing was on the wall.
The end, however, was sudden and awkward. Supposedly, this is not how Hinkie had intended for it to end. But an excellent term paper, which would have taken me a solid week to write in college, penned by Hinkie and submitted to all parties of interest in Philadelphia ownership, was leaked via the media. 13 pages of explanation, justification, and liberation. You should read it, seriously. It’s here. And then you should read the annotated version of it, here. Please, read both.
If you’ve already read it, you probably didn’t learn a whole lot that wasn’t already apparent. Still, there are some things to unpack from the Hinkie era in Philadelphia.
“Read from afar…”
I’ve always been an admirer of R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich. Something about growing up a Bulls fan, watching the dynasty implode and then the tyrannosaurus-trying-to-catch-a-football way ownership and the front office have managed the team for well over a decade since under Jerry Reinsdorf has been brutal. But somewhere, while the Spurs were zagging their way to playoff appearances every year, Hinkie has been zigging his way toward the nowhere of draft misfortune.
Another way to read it from afar, the hand was writing on the wall and Silver had the interpretation. Clearly, Hinkie had to know that when one Colangelo was acquired, with another roaming untethered to an employer, his role was going to be downsized. That didn’t sit well with him, and here we are.
“There has been much criticism of our approach.”
The Sixers approach was crucified publicly again and again and again. There were a lot of justifiable reasons people were angry about the whole experiment. The team has been the worst in the league over the last three years. Humans that weren’t born when this started can now speak English well enough to say, “Trust the process.”
“Yup.”
Well. Yup.
“And mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes.”
When Hinkie drafted Joel Embiid, he was a very high-upside prospect. The foot fiasco and the eventual setback and the Rihanna tweets and the publicly criticized work ethic still can’t derail what is emerging each day much more clearly – Embiid is coming back. But they lost two full years of that contract and his growth. There is still a lot of time for Embiid to become a dominant big, but while Hinkie was around Embiid wasn’t. Other question marks are out there on players they let slip away, also. Michael Carter-Williams was Rookie of the Year in a weak rookie class, but they shipped him off right away. K.J. McDaniels looked like he might turn into something quite good if he got solid minutes, so naturally they pushed him to the Rockets where he withers on the bench. They practically didn’t deserve the return of Ish Smith. How many players did they cycle through? Well, go here and educate yourself on the full list.
“What’s knowable and what each of us know.”
Here’s where you are requested to take your foot off of the accelerator. For all of the issues that Hinkie created, it is safe to say that he was let go at the very moment that the 76ers hit rock bottom. 10 wins is bad, even for the Hinkie era. Here is a very real fact that all people should be able to understand: you cannot know the future. There are tools, statistics and other types of measurements of past events that can help produce a well-founded confidence in what is believed to be a future event, but there is not surety in it. It is nearly impossible to envision the Sixers having a worse season in the next decade or so that will be worse than this season. Honestly, what it takes for a team to be projected at 10 wins in a season is already such an outlier. Certainly, what is knowable is that they will be a better team next year. What is not known? Just how much better can this team be, where will they end up in the draft, how can they use their cap space?
“Your club is on solid footing now.”
Hinkie isn’t wrong here. But isn’t this more than just a little like an arsonist burning your house down while you watch, but leaving your tool shed alone. Then, in the glow of the still hot embers the arsonist looks at you and says, “There isn’t more that I can do here. Now, you’re in a great position to build your new house.” It does look pretty good, doesn’t it? Dario Saric, Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Robert Covington, Nik Stauskas, Ish Smith, Jerami Grant, Richaun Holmes. There’s some real value here and a lot of potential. They have a great coach in Brett Brown. There is an abundance of cap room to work with in Philly. Oh, and don’t forget the upcoming draft lottery. Likely, Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram is heading to Pennsylvania. And they’ve got a series of other picks that are going to be conveyed in the not-so-distant future, including this year and a whole series of second round picks.
In all of his delightful madness, Hinkie was a significant outlier among NBA GMs. The biggest crime here may actually be the dark comedy of Hinkie resigning at this precise time. His inability to function within an ever-reduced role with the onboarding of a second Colangelo imminent created a situation he found untenable. After all the misery he made fans, ownership, players, the media, bloggers and whatever aliens millions of light years away hacked into League Pass have endured, it was Hinkie who ultimately called it quits first.
The punishment for Hinkie will be that he will not be around to enjoy any fruits of his labor. He will be excoriated for his ultimate inability to inspire confidence of any stakeholder. And, what is worse, he will be robbed of any role he played by a Colangelo. Indeed, all those draft picks and all of those players and all of that cap space and the coaching staff will all be available to a new general manager.
“I wish you the best of luck.”
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
