Sam Hinkie's Plan (Part 1)

Let's begin with Sam Hinkie's so-called Plan that has torn apart the city of Philadelphia. We'll start with the history.

When Sam Hinkie came to Philadelphia the Sixers had just suffered the Andrew Bynum debacle. Bynum sat out a full season while Doug Collins tried to thread a roster together with Nick Young and Dorell Wright. You had Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen, Spencer Hawes, That Young, and Jrue Holiday. The big questions, to me and other linear-thinking troglodytes, was "do you re-sign Bynum" and "for how much?" Everyone was like: "if you can get him cheap blah blah blah." Hinkie came in and said something cryptic that turned out to be very smart. He said he'd treat Bynum like the "thousands of other basketball players playing all over the world." No one knew what that meant. It meant that Hinkie wanted no part of Bynum. Bynum ended up being a disaster in Cleveland and then a mere trashcan fire in Indiana.

On Draft Night 2013 (not that long ago, but eons in Sixer Time), the Hinkie Era began. Hinkie traded the one great player the Sixers had: Jrue Holiday for Nerlens Noel (the 6 pick) and a future first. He then drafted Michael Carter-Williams in the first round and Arsalan Kazemi, an analytics wunderkind due to his expert rebounding, in round 2. The Holiday trade, executed while I was in Korea, was stunning--especially b/c it was first reported to me as "Noel for Holiday and a future first." But moreso b/c you just don't trade your only All-Star while he's still really, really young and just shown that he can shoot a 3. This was an outside-the-box trade and Hinkie got the second first not just b/c Holiday is good, but b/c Noel was injured and probably out for the year. So you just lost a starting PG for a guy who won't play for a year.

The Sixers that year burst out of the gate winning and I remember making many jokes referencing the movie Major League. The GM clearly wanted to tank but the team was half-decent. They eventually calmed down as most teams led by Elliot Williams do and Hinkie proceeded to trade everyone Collins had except for Thad Young. ET and Lavoy went to Indiana for pennies (I believe one 2nd rounder); Hawes went to Cleveland for two seconds and Henry Sims (who turned out to be serviceable on an abysmal team); and soon you had a team that literally trotted out line-ups that D-League teams could beat. Year One was stamped as the Tank Year and everyone assumed that the Sixers would draft Andrew Wiggins and one other great player (with the first from New Orleans) and start on their road to redemption.

It didn't happen that way. There were two stomach punches in the 2014 Draft. First was when Joel Embiid was found to have a foot injury days before the draft. This was a stomach punch because the Sixers had the 3 pick and Embiid was supposed to be number 1. The draft order was prognosticated to be Embiid, Parker, Wiggins. Now things were turned upside down. It sounded like Cleveland would take Wiggins at 1, then you assumed Jabari Parker would go to Milwaukee, this left a big question mark for the Sixers. The assumption was that Aussie Dante Exum would be taken despite the presence of Michael Carter-Williams, who, by the way, was reported to be on the trading block. The Sixers bypassed Exum and took Joel Embiid--another center! And then took Elfrid Payton, stomach punch to MCW, who they traded to Orlando for Dario Saric, MCW's OK! Fans are down! This was the second big stomach punch: this one to fans. The team was abysmal, went on a 26 game losing streak and now drafted two guys that would probably not play the next year in addition to some second rounders like Jordan McRae and Jerami Grant.

Part 2 Next!