The process was fine in principle, in exucution Hinkie was to extreme. In the draft BPA is a must in the first 20 picks of the draft however taking this to the extreme where you draft a Center 3 years in a row is extreme. The other issue I had with Hinkie was the lack of potential placed on the court. If tanking is the plan then the team should be playing high potential players in key roles to promote growth. 76ers where often playing D-League level talent in prominent roles with little hope of ever being legit NBA rotational players.
There's a lot of reasons the narrative is so anti-Hinkie.
- Teams upset about them not attempting to get to the salary floor and the financial drag they were during the process
- Rival GM's mad at Hinkie's ruthless negotiation tactics
- Teams angry that they violated the spirit of the league by intentionally bottoming out and landing quality assets every single year
- Agents angry that they refused to pay a single penny for veteran talent
- Agents angry that 2nd rounders got locked into team-friendly deals
etc
People scoff at the method, but it was and remains a very sound strategy that has worked in the past. The difference is that Hinkie shamelessly admitted they were tanking and was very transparent with everything - while subsequently not trying to educate the ignorant masses that didn't understand the strategy.
Most fans in Philly get what Hinkie accomplished. He's beloved there by the majority of fans and for good reason. That team has tons of young talent now. Embiid could end up a superstar. Simmons could end up a superstar. Okafor and Noel are two of the finest young big man prospects in the game. Saric is apparently in the process of coming over finally. They have something like 70 million dollars in cap space and you best believe free agents will be happy to take their money. Perhaps not the top-tier talent, but as Jared Dudley recently said in his podcast with CLNS radio, the two main factors for free agents are #1 - Money and #2 - Role. Philly will have plenty of money. Whoever signs there will obviously have a role.
Having followed this league my entire life I'm fairly confident that all the smug rabblerousers dumping on Hinkie will have nothing to say a year from now if things start moving forward for that team. It was hard to keep making fun of the ineptness of the Clippers when they were suddenly one of the most exciting teams in the league. Nobody is going to be whining about Hinkie if Ben SImmons and Joel Embiid are battling it out for Rookie of the Year.
Things could still fail for them. But they could also turn out really really great for them. Don't be stunned if they trade for Ricky Rubio or something. Don't be dumfounded if Mike Conley accepts a contract there. Don't lose your mind if Harrison Barnes agrees to a max deal and Golden State doesn't match. Don't be shocked if they fill out their roster with quality veteran talent (the Luol Deng types) who add some balance and maturity to that team.
It's fine to gloat about how much they failed, but first wait to see if they failed. We are at the very beginning of the expected next stage of the process. Step 1: Acquire tons of assets with ultimate goal of landing a superstar prospect. Step 2: Convert assets into a functioning basketball team. This was going to happen with or without Hinkie on board. We're right in the middle of the transition between Step 1 (a wild success) and Step 2... You can't claim they failed at Step 1 when they have Ben Simmons on that roster. So if you're declaring Step 2 a failure, at least wait to see what happens in Step 2.
Topic: New ESPN on Hinkie and the Process (Read 16386 times)