APBRmetrics

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--b ... 28256.html

What awful news, what an awful decision, what an awful day for the rational and scientific approach to running an NBA team.

This sucks.

I don't know if it is an awful decision. There is not much that is very positive about Hinkie's record besides future draft pick acquisition and lack of ongoing bad salaries. The big men have had tons of injuries and don't fit together or probably don't. Especially if you want to emphasize the 3pt game. I'd say his draft picks and trade acquisitions have been below average. IMO the Brett Brown hire and extension were both bad. He named a couple of 25yr old techies Vice President. He pissed off a lot of fans, agents and didn't have a media game to maintain faith in the super slow plan. It would seem he lost the faith of the owner too.

The Colangelos are not likely to fix things greatly or fast but there was plenty of reason to doubt that Hinkie was the right guy to lead phase 2, in the draft and especially in free agency. If they have abandoned the original plan and crave mere respectability, then the change is probably appropriate. If they are after a title, that is likely 5 to 7 plus years and probably another regime change or two away even in an optimistic scenario.

Crow wrote:I don't know if it is an awful decision. There is not much that is very positive about Hinkie's record besides future draft pick acquisition and lack of ongoing bad salaries. The big men have had tons of injuries and don't fit together or probably don't. Especially if you want to emphasize the 3pt game. IMO the Brett Brown hire and extension were both bad. He named a couple of 25yr old techies Vice President. The Colangelos are not likely to fix things greatly or fast but there was plenty of reason to doubt that Hinkie was the right guy to lead phase 2, in the draft and especially in free agency. If they have abandoned the original plan and crave mere respectability, then the change is probably appropriate. If they are after a title, that is likely 5 to 7 plus years and probably another regime change or two away even in an optimistic scenario.

No team has acquired assets as proficiently as Hinkie has over the past 2.5 years.
The current lineup of the sixers might fit together poorly, but the final form of the sixers will look nothing like the current roster.

The Sixers team that makes the playoffs in 4 plus years will probably only have 1-3 guys from the current team. If they make the playoffs, most of the credit should probably go to the guy who drafts well from here. The paper asset acquisition was probably the easiest task on the road to being good or great, especially in the situation of the last few years of teams trying to avoid luxury taxes.

Hinkie might have done ok or well in phase 2 and beyond. But he bears a lot of responsibility for his ouster.

After reading that letter I find it harder to understand how he got the job in the first place. The owners are probably more convinced he had to go. I can't imagine another ownership group in the future reading it and saying he is our guy. Daryl Morey's utmost confidence in Hinkie seems sketchier to me.

Having a ton of future picks going into the next era is great strategically. But you still have to draft right and achieve synergy or trade for other stuff from teams that will ask for multiple assets because you have them and will be hard pressed to use them all if you don't deal with them or the other GMs wanting big payouts.

Attendance rank in season before Hinkie, 17th. This season 28th. Years of work to get back to 17th or above.

The 4 first rounders this coming draft probably won't itself put them on a trajectory to get above .500. After this draft, their extra draft pick haul is not super impressive to me. They are far from certain to rise above mediocrity.

The NBA Draft has a trail of bones... Hinkie latest victim

Ultimately I can't kill him for his picks too much. I did my best to replicate how my 2016 draft system would predict his picks (being realistic in the sense of taking players within 10 picks), and the results weren't better really. In 2013 MCW and Noel were #s friendly picks so it's hard to knock compared to taking a numbers blind prospect in Giannis... in my re-run I took MCW #6 and then used #11 on Dieng or Adams. In 2014 Embiid was by far the dominant prospect, and then next closest was Smart who they weren't going to draft on a team with ROY MCW, and then a drop-off after that to some other only decent prospects like Vonleh. So it felt like it had to be Embiid, then I used #10 pick on Gary Harris who I think would look better pick right now than Saric. In 2015 Okafor's numbers are a no no for me that high... but the player I settled on was Stanley Johnson. Okafor for his empty stats has still been better than him, although that could change in upcoming years drastically. Once again the now consensus right answer in Porzingis is a Euro player hard for #s systems to get a hold on.

But the problem is that putting all the eggs in one basket was going to carry these risks. Diversifying attempts to make Sixers better could have allowed Hinkie to survive draft bad luck better

Using RAPM analytics Okafor rates as the center with the by far very worst overall impact estimate this year. Long way to average, good or great. Noel, below average PF and not really a PF to some. 3 PGs ranked 35th, 38th and 75th. Not the way to squeeze max development out of a young squad.

Crow wrote:After reading that letter I find it harder to understand how he got the job in the first place. The owners are probably more convinced he had to go. I can't imagine another ownership group in the future reading it and saying he is our guy. Daryl Morey's utmost confidence in Hinkie seems sketchier to me.

If that's your response to the letter, then we have different views of the world and by extension, basketball.

I endorse every single sentence in that letter because it is based on the foundational principles that drive my thinking. Because these ideas are ingrained in my thinking so thoroughly, I truly have no idea what part of that letter people could dispute.

Some responses to what you wrote:
- Okafor was the best player available at their pick according to the APBR/Analytics consensus. Nobody is saying he is perfect, I have no idea what you think they should have done in that scenario.
- The 76ers additional assets for next season also include Saric and Embid. Their goal is also not to be .500 by next season, but to be on a trajectory that has a substantial (10-30% chance) of winning an NBA championship
- Attendance in the middle of a planned tank is meaningless. Worth noting that the 76ers had an incredibly low payroll during this time period and were still profitable.

I think there is a very good chance Saric waits another season.

If you liked Porzingis, he was the draft alternative to Okafor. I probably would have tried to trade the pick.

A resignation letter is really not the place to lecture your employers why you were right of apparently most things (and yet...) and align yourself with greats from other fields when you are leaving near the beginning of a project before a 2nd demotion. Lincoln, Buffet, Musk... and the most aggressive NBA tank job leader that has taken the team to the very bottom?


Jerami Grant and R Holmes are "gems" already? Wouldn't play on many teams. Might become average or above average but right now they are rookies with little to set them above other low to middle level rookies. Holmes has potential but starts out as the worst defensive rebounder in the league 6-10 or taller. http://bkref.com/tiny/8cbFO An important job typically for PFs. Grant also has potential but gems are about realized potential. He is a wing shooting 22% from 3pt land. 3pt shooting is pretty important for wings, for teams emphasizing 3pt shooting. By the main metrics, box score and RPM, Grant is barely above replacement level.

There are indeed different ways to read his letter. If it was a Sloan Conference speech or a Nylon Calculus article I wouldn't disagree with much on the content, the "theory". Much of my negative reaction is related to timing, context and tone but also to execution, especially on draft picks performance to date. Yeah it is too early to make a full and fair evaluation but the way he executed the tank gave him less time and grace than most GMs get.

Which of these strategies had / has a better chance of a title... a team with Embid, Noel and Okafor (all centers?) or two of them and a better PG than you have now and who will likely be better in near to immediate future than an even younger, less experienced and developed PG that you maybe get this summer, the next or the next? I'd want my PG of the future early in the process, probably earlier than my center, especially these days. You can't always order things exactly as hoped but the actual ordering doesn't look great. How often do people trade a good or great PG for a young center? Not a scenario I would have much hope for but after taking Okafor they had better make it happen, directly or thru intermediate steps. They aren't getting to .500 without a good PG starter and they don't have that, near that or that much hope of developing that from what they've got right now. Are top quality free agent PGs looking to post feed young bigs? That isn't what most are looking for. Moving on from Holiday was ok for a title ambitious team, moving on from MCW was right too but you still got to fill that slot, fill it well and fill it fast. And then keep working on the rest for 3, probably 5, maybe 7 more years.