Sam Hinkie gone :(

[Crow]

Brett Brown either made a deadpan observation or took a shot at Hinkie when he said Hinkie quitting was a sign he didn't want to participate in the collaborative approach. There is a difference between fostering a collaborative approach below you and at your direction and use and non-use and being in a collaborative process you don't control and rule. In the Zach Lowe interview just before he quit, Hinkie sounded half-open to a team of peers but hinted he wouldn't be for it that model if it and those pushing if it weren't truly "collaborative", I.e. giving him sufficient input or even still power. Neither side was probably willing to be as collaborative as they claimed to be. They both insisted in being top dogs. The owners may have failed in supervising / guiding Hinkie or selecting him or in not sticking to his plan or him. They get a new chance to get it right or wrong with the Colangelo hires, plan and supervision.

[Crow]

If Hinkie had just said something like:

I have tried hard to adjust to change in the organizational dynamic. The newest plan to add another voice is within your rights to suggest but I have concluded that it would make it much more difficult or impossible for me to do what I was hired to do. Therefore I resign, thank you for the opportunity to serve you and wish you and the team well.

Then, I think half or more of the story would be about the Colangelos and the owners. The actual letter made it 99% about him.

[bondom343]

A large part of the issue with him resigning is also in the replacement and lack of ownership accountability. At some point they agreed to go through this sort of rebuild but over the last few months brought in Jerry Colangelo to "assist" HInkie, then a few months later won't allow Hinkie to do his job, prompting this followed by the rapid hiring with no other interviews of Colangelo's son, who has a pretty poor track record in Toronto of squandering assets on mediocre veterans. There's a pretty distinct chance that Philly returns to where they were a few years ago with a capped out, older roster competing for middle playoff seeds.

[ampersand5]

Crow - I find it challenging responding to some of your points when they are spread over so many posts (also because my APBR account logs out for some strange reason every time I move to a new page). It would make things easier for me if everything was just in one post.

There are many things that Hinkie can be criticized for - if he should have signed more cheap veterans, if he should have spoken to the media more, had a better relationship with agents etc. However, I just think its silly to criticize him for tanking "too hard" over the past three years and to question his draft picks. Tanking, or being bad is so common in the NBA; the only difference is that Hinkie did it more efficiently than the other teams. Keep in mind that Hinkie didn't have that much room to be better before harming his lottery odds. One could make an argument saying that being "too" bad for two seasons of Nerlens and one season of Okafor's career will stunt their longterm development; I just personally think it's a weak argument.

It is too early and the sample size isn't large enough to judge Hinkie's drafting ability based on outcomes. Therefore, we can only make evaluations based on process, and considering all of his picks were supported by not only the analytics consensus, but also the popular consensus, such criticisms seem poor. This is especially true when one takes into account that there is significant evidence that Hinkie's decision making process is outstanding. Moreover, his picks show something important - Nerlens and Embid were both supposed to miss one season and it might be two or three before Saric comes over. This makes teams less likely to select them based on how it impacts their immediate interests. As the 76ers did not care about being good throughout this time and therefore did not suffer any consequences for these players missing time, Hinkie was able to acquire all three for less than they were worth.

In regards to selecting four big men -- it's important to note that there are 96 minutes in each NBA game for big men. This means that the 76ers could play three big men 32 minutes per night - making only one redundant. The odds that all four of them become successful NBA players is quite low. Additionally, over time, the NBA is a mostly liquid market, making trading one or two of them for equivalent value, a realistic scenario.

I remember getting upset reading the press 1-2 years ago saying that Hinkie was just about analytics. While I am surprised that I haven't seen almost any mention of analytics, I am equally upset reading the press now saying Hinkie is just about the lottery. Hinkie's model definitely uses tools such as analytics and the lottery, but his model isn't about either of those things. It's about using all tools available to him to increase the expected odds of success.

Ultimately, the reason why I am so inclined to support Hinkie is because he embraces the same latticework model of thinking as I do (although he is substantially smarter than I am); a model which I value immensely and think will in the longrun, always lead to better results.

[mystic]

Crow - I find it challenging responding to some of your points when they are spread over so many posts (also because my APBR account logs out for some strange reason every time I move to a new page). It would make things easier for me if everything was just in one post.

Not just for you, but I would also prefer reading just one post with somewhat coherent argumentation. I think that would facilitate a better discussion.

It is too early and the sample size isn't large enough to judge Hinkie's drafting ability based on outcomes.

It is not just the sample size, but also a lack of information about the internal thought process. For example, there is a rumor that Hinkie actually wanted to draft Porzingis instead of Okafor despite the fact that the Porzingis camp tried their best to avoid contact to the 76ers. It is similar to Steph Curry not wanting to be selected by the Timberwolves, where basically nobody understood why Flynn was selected.
In fact, there were strong rumors before the draft that the Knicks would have been interested to trade up to get Okafor. I wouldn't be surprised, if Hinkie would have strongly considered trading Okafor for Porzingis + x at the time of the draft. So, I think I was higher on Porzingis than most people (some had even Hezonja as the better Euro prospect), but nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Hinkie had such an idea while he was basically forced to take Okafor.

Anyway, judging the draft abilities by outcome is always extremely difficult, because the results would need heavy adjustments for something simple as luck. I like using an example of players, which from my perspective fit extremely well for what I want to say: Russell Westbrook and Jerryd Bayless. At the time of the draft both looked basically similar strong as prospects, while Westbrook was seen as a bit more athletic, Bayless was the one being more skilled. But history tells us that Bayless run into multiple injuries at the start of his NBA career while Westbrook did not. Bayless had to fight for some playing time while Westbrook was able to accumulate experience. I think that both (being injury-free, getting experience) are big factors, and in fact more of a factor for a successful career than the differences in talent at the time of the draft (if both healthy and get a similar amount of experience, obviously the talent gap will have a great impact). Circumstances and luck (maybe personality too) are factors, which have a huge influence on the outcome, but can't be known when teams have to make a decision which player they take with their respective draft pick.

And that's why I think this

Therefore, we can only make evaluations based on process ...

is the only logical way to judge.

Ultimately, the reason why I am so inclined to support Hinkie is because he embraces the same latticework model of thinking as I do (although he is substantially smarter than I am); a model which I value immensely and think will in the longrun, always lead to better results.

And based on that I believe Hinkie would adapt to changing circumstances. When we look at the value of the assets of the 76ers back in 2013 when Hinkie took over, I don't see much, and I'm pretty sure the 76ers wouldn't have had significant more on-court success with a different kind of strategy. In this league, if you want to increase the value of the assets, you can only take assets away from other teams and try to develop young players better than the average team. You can somewhat play the odds of the draft, but there isn't really that much to gain unless there are clear-cut superstar players in the draft and you end up with the 1st pick (or a Oden/Durant situation occurs and you are lucky enough to just get the 2nd pick). With #2 to #5 picks pretty good players were available, but the variance of the outcome is actually pretty high too. Everything below that is basically nothing more than flip of a really slightly loaded coin. There isn't really much to play with, and you have to do a lot more than just play the lottery in order to gain an advantage over average teams in the longrun. And from what I gathered, that's what Hinkie tried to do in Philadelphia, and from the transaction I observed, I can't really see a notable mistake in the process.

If we look at the increase in value of an asset, we can take Jrue Holiday. Hinkie turned that player, which is in general an above average player for his position, into Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric and their own 1st round pick (getting that back from the Magic). No idea, but when we look at the respective values, I can't think of many GM, who could achieve something like that. Overall Hinkie took a team with a pretty low value of future assets to a team which has essentially the 2nd most value of future assets in their pocket just right behind the Celtics, which gained a lot of those assets via the Garnett/Pierce/Terry trade. Yeah, so far we don't know how good those assets will turn out to be, but the basic idea behind gaining such assets and the transaction to get them, have to be seen as really good, at least from my perspective.

[J.E.]

I couldn't make myself read the letter after the first couple of sentences, but I'm also not the target audience and the letter was probably not meant to be seen by anyone outside the 76ers organizations

I think Hinkie did a lot of things right, but I agree with people that say he never showed that he could put a winning team together. In general I liked his approach of accumulating draft picks, but for that to work out you have to be either lucky or good with drafting - I don't think he was either. This may be a bit of self-adulation but I hated the Embiid pick when it happened, and I think one can't afford these kind of missteps when executing this type of plan

While I'm all for not signing vets to maybe make the 8th seed and get bounced in the first round, I think it should still be a goal to not be the laughingstock (in terms of team performance) of the league for multiple consecutive years. High picks can also be had if you win 25 games. No need to "shoot for" 10 wins per season every time.

Basically, I think the "process" took too long to execute

Also, in the past I've been one of the bigger advocates for "tanking" but the 76ers actually turned my opinion around. Now I think that tanking (when done over a longer period) will have mutiple undesired side effects:
1. Perhaps most importantly, you don't care (as much as others) whether your player development staff is doing a good job. You're not looking, as hard as you could, for potential improvements. I do believe the Spurs have the best player development staff and it has tremendous value
2. Players get better when playing with/against good players. If the team is fielding mostly D-Leaguers it'll be harder for your lottery picks to improve in the desired way
3. I could also imagine that excessive losing could lead to motivational issues for 19-year-olds that have won ~95% of basketball games they've played in their lives, although the effect could certainly be minor

I think Charlotte and Portland are showing us this season that you don't need to throw in the towel immediately if you get some bad offseason news and/or start with a less-than-perfect roster. With a few good signings, that weren't complete wizardry really, you can be back in the mix in a very short time. Boston won 40 games last year and made some great deals with/for Johnson, Crowder and Thomas

In a way, it feels Hinkie didn't trust himself enough to not do the same mistakes other teams-always-gunning-for-8th often do. He could have taken a non-tanking path and simply have the trust in himself to swing slightly smarter deals than his eastern conference competitors do

I probably would have done a "light" version of what Hinkie was doing. Still swing for deals that seem advantageous, but try to field a few more NBA-ready players and accumulate more players the fans and owner can get excited about. Get some more seats filled in your own and opponent arenas, as well

[J.E.]

That said I do believe Hinkie would have done a better job from here on out than Bryan Colangelo will, and I find the nepotism going on here appalling.

[ampersand5]

I couldn't make myself read the letter after the first couple of sentences, but I'm also not the target audience and the letter was probably not meant to be seen by anyone outside the 76ers organizations

I think Hinkie did a lot of things right, but I agree with people that say he never showed that he could put a winning team together. In general I liked his approach of accumulating draft picks, but for that to work out you have to be either lucky or good with drafting - I don't think he was either. This may be a bit of self-adulation but I hated the Embiid pick when it happened, and I think one can't afford these kind of missteps when executing this type of plan

While I'm all for not signing vets to maybe make the 8th seed and get bounced in the first round, I think it should still be a goal to not be the laughingstock (in terms of team performance) of the league for multiple consecutive years. High picks can also be had if you win 25 games. No need to "shoot for" 10 wins per season every time.

Basically, I think the "process" took too long to execute

Also, in the past I've been one of the bigger advocates for "tanking" but the 76ers actually turned my opinion around. Now I think that tanking (when done over a longer period) will have mutiple undesired side effects:
1. Perhaps most importantly, you don't care (as much as others) whether your player development staff is doing a good job. You're not looking, as hard as you could, for potential improvements. I do believe the Spurs have the best player development staff and it has tremendous value
2. Players get better when playing with/against good players. If the team is fielding mostly D-Leaguers it'll be harder for your lottery picks to improve in the desired way
3. I could also imagine that excessive losing could lead to motivational issues for 19-year-olds that have won ~95% of basketball games they've played in their lives, although the effect could certainly be minor

I think Charlotte and Portland are showing us this season that you don't need to throw in the towel immediately if you get some bad offseason news and/or start with a less-than-perfect roster. With a few good signings, that weren't complete wizardry really, you can be back in the mix in a very short time. Boston won 40 games last year and made some great deals with/for Johnson, Crowder and Thomas

In a way, it feels Hinkie didn't trust himself enough to not do the same mistakes other teams-always-gunning-for-8th often do. He could have taken a non-tanking path and simply have the trust in himself to swing slightly smarter deals than his eastern conference competitors do

I probably would have done a "light" version of what Hinkie was doing. Still swing for deals that seem advantageous, but try to field a few more NBA-ready players and accumulate more players the fans and owner can get excited about. Get some more seats filled in your own and opponent arenas, as well

JE - because of how much I value your thoughts, I wanted to give a point by point response.
(not that it matters, but the letter is much better written after the first few sentences.)

Ofcourse he never showed that couldn put a winning team together, he never tried. Your next sentence confuses me - not only do I not understand how a person can be "lucky", but I see no evidence to suggest that he's bad at drafting. In fact, I think there is plenty evidence to the contrary (every draft redo online shows his players being redrafted ahead of where they were selected). You use the word adulation, but I don't know how that can be applied because there is no consensus or support for your opinion that Embiid was a misstep (nice pun). You later reference how you would only do a "light tank", but I'm not sure how that can be reconciled with your belief that Hinkie couldn't afford a draft misstep; surely a longer tank would allow for greater uncertainty, no?

I think you raised a a valid point that despite the potential benefits of tanking effectively, being a laughing stock is an important consequence. I don't know what the right trade off is. Keep in mind that this is the first year that the 76ers will finish last; I don't think the big problem is being so bad in any one year, but just the fact that it came in year 3 - it might have been better to finish last in year 1, and then third in years 2 and 3.

The problem with aiming for 25 losses is that the draft pick quality radically diminishes in value for every pick higher. It is debatable whether or not tanking is the ideal strategy, but tanking for 1-3rd picks is materially more valuable than tanking for 4-7th picks.

I'm not sure where the argument that the 76ers didn't care about player developments. From what I understand, they were incredibly dedicated to it. They were doing a lot of innovative things for player development, and specifically, things that would encourage effort and enthusiasm outside of just trying to achieve victories.

Players do get better playing with/against good players - but that's true of every young/tanking team. It's worth noting that out of the players who matter, Nerlens only played 2 years, while Okafor played 1 and Embiid/Saric played 0.

I don't think it's fair to say that Hinkie didn't trust himself to build that way. I just think that he viewed this model as having a greater likelihood of being able to build a championship contending team. For example, Hinkie might have thought that building through a 3 year tank gave him a 12% chance of having a contending team in his first 7 years as a GM, tanking for 2 years gave him an 8% chance, and building through trades/free agency as a 3% chance.

[ampersand5]

To put it in perspective, this is a potential lineup for next year

Kris Dunn/ TJ McConnell
XXXXXXX/Nik Stauskus
Brandon Ingram/ Robert Covington / Jerami Grant
Dario Saric / Nerlens Noel
Joel Embiid/ Nerlens Noel

XXXXXXX = player traded for Okafor/free agent signing.

[Crow]

I made my points when they came to me and when I had time to put them down while doing other things. That is just the way it went this time using a phone as input tool. In some cases to separate very different comments, my own interests and responses to others, I chose to make distinct posts. Your back to back posts just did the same thing, though perhaps I am to blame. Others have bounced around within posts too. And even though I built up and amended posts, I wanted to keep the size of the posts down to a more manageable length and the time of that editing down. If I put it all, later, into one or a few posts, I am pretty sure someone would gave said that's too many points and too long. Well, I wanted to make that many points because it is a big topic with many aspects.


Of the 7 guys Hinkie highlighted in his letter, 6 have played. Using one type of analytics, RPM, to evaluate so far:

Covington estimate, ranked 88. Better than plus 1 on defense. Way bigger negative on offense.
Noel 198. Better than plus 1 on defense. Way bigger negative on offense.
McConnell 243. Better than -1 on both sides.
Grant 297. Better than -1 on one side.
Holmes 312. Better than -1 on one side.
Okafor 451. Not better than -1 on either side. Huge negative on offense.

That is a weak to date core and ignores other guys on continuing contracts in the high 400s and even more guys in 300s to high 400s that Hinkie probably would have kept even though not currently obligated. Some may improve but they have almost nothing so far to feel that good about. They could only be part way along their path by now but they are far from half done. They might be only 1/4th done.

I don't think it is right to just judge on process and no one is just judging on records to date. It should be a balance. Tanking is a common strategy but the Sixers example may be saying that the 3rd year is tough for the fan base and media and expecting to be bad to very bad for a 4th and maybe 5th or more is even tougher. Especially for a franchise that has known great success rather than a perennial also ran or an expansion team. The Sixers history and fan attitude made a super long tank very abrasive. Only a super communicator could have dampened or avoided the backlash much. That should have been a pretty obvious part of the process though.

[Crow]

To put it in perspective, this is a potential lineup for next year

Kris Dunn/ TJ McConnell
XXXXXXX/Nik Stauskus
Brandon Ingram/ Robert Covington / Jerami Grant
Dario Saric / Nerlens Noel
Joel Embiid/ Nerlens Noel

XXXXXXX = player traded for Okafor/free agent signing.

Do you think that lineup wins more than 25 games next season? I don't. Not that this is an important goal. But it would be encouraging. 45 and 55 wins are a long way above, as are playoff series wins.

[Crow]

Sixers ownership bailed on Hinkie after 3 years. Did they bail on the process? Don't know for sure yet.

I get the impression that Hinkie / process supporters might have given 7 plus years for it to play out before interruption, no matter what or at least not unless things went considerably worse than they have. Right or wrong?

If you would have applied analytic evaluation after 5 years what criteria would you have used on Hinkie or now the Colangelos? 29 plus wins and at least 2 core players with a RPM or BPM above 1? Higher, lower or different standards? These marks aren't much beyond a signal there is some chance to get back to at least .500. Maybe half way to your intermediate goal. You are still left relying on potential and development. But if executives could keep their jobs by meeting this proposed standard, less or none then the process is probably going to end up no better than a 6 year slog to winning a playoff round and more likely worse than the average time from a 20 win or less season for those who make that moderate goal.

Do you think the chances of Hinkie of meeting this year 5 standard was 1) certain to almost certain, 2) more likely than not, 3) 50/50 or less? Some think the Colangelos will do less well than Hinkie would have. Do they miss this standard? Will they pay for it? Will the combination of Hinkie and the Colangelo beat or fail to beat the 6 year average to winning a playoff series? It isn't looking too good for that to happen imo.

I really don't see any basis to project title chances above the norm (like ESPN didn't) or even much above the very bottom (like 538 didn't), yet. Maybe after next draft or next season.

Did Hinkie and / or ownership expect to be above 25 wins in year 3? Probably. Hinkie could live with it. The owners apparently couldn't or at least not with the likelihood of more. If they accepted the year 5 standards, they weren't half way to that and in bigger picture not a quarter way to winning a playoff series and maybe a eighth or tenth of the way to a title.

[Crow]

On McConnell's TO%: At 22% for season, it is 5th highest in league for a guard playing over 500 minutes. But looking at splits, I now see it was terrible in November but much better after that. Closing the season well on this. That is good news.

[Crow]

fwiw, I speculated about and was quite open to the Sixers trade Holiday here 2 months before it happened.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8237&p=15791&hilit=holiday#p15791

[bchaikin]

On McConnell's TO%: At 22% for season, it is 5th highest in league for a guard playing over 500 minutes

at B-R it shows emmanuel mudiay has a TO% of 18.1%, mcconnell 22.4%. how useful is this number?...

if you look at http://www.nba.com/stats you see this for these two players:

---------------------------frontcourt------passes
----------------touches----touches------thrown-------turnovers
mudiay---------4859-------4295----------3506---------211
mcconnell------4459-------3778----------3666---------134

per touch or per frontcourt touch mcconnell commits far fewer turnovers than does mudiay...