So after evaluating the Process to date and seeing that there is some light at the end of tunnel, it's time to look at the Colangelo choice.
I think this was done for a couple reasons.
(1) lack of accountability of players after Okafor situation and rumors of Noel and Embiid fines
(2) "star" young guys getting special treatment
(3) tone deaf, slow handling of Okafor situation
(4) Hinkie leaving Brett Brown out to dry
(5) team looking like a trash fire this year that may not win 5 games
What will Colangelo bring?
(1) an end to secrecy or at least a more candid franchise
(2) perhaps a free agent vet or two to mentor the kids
(3) some knowledge on creating a basketball TEAM
Is Hinkie out?
This could be Step One of that. I agree that Colangelo hiring is an indictment of Hinkie's slow-moving plan to date and the fact that Hinkie completely left his young studs out to dry this year with such a threadbare team.
I think moreso than indicting the plan, Colangelo is an indictment of Hinkie's DECISION MAKING. If you're gonna bank on the draft, you're looking at OKC as your model and they made amazing picks. Many, many teams have followed similar strategies and there's only one OKC--but many Sacramentos, Clippers, etc. Hinkie's 2014 Draft MAY turn out to be a success but so far it looks like Embiid pick was a big mistake. His 2015 Draft leaves why no Mudiay or Porzingis an open question. And his 2013 Draft failed to bring in Giannis or Gobert and left us with the degrading Noel and the gone MCW.
Hinkie's picks--for all their volume--have strangely been SAFE. Okafor over Porzingis and Mudiay. Noel and MCW as best-player-available picks. Embiid over other players less valued by the consensus. All of these big guys could be said to be guys that "coulda been number one picks if not for..." But these guys all had injury or style red flags. True, Embiid pick was risky--as was Saric--but these were consensus best-player-available picks. No thinking outside the box for an Aaron Gordon or Mario Hezonja or Bruno Caboclo or Kristaps Porzingis.
Further, three Big Man drafts have boxed Hinkie in. He traded MCW at the height of his worth but now he has 3 bigs (at least) and he needs to trade one or more and their value is going down due to injury or bad fit or bad play. This forces you to take a PG or wing in 2016 and NOT best-player-available.
Does Colangelo help the situation?
In Decision Making? Perhaps. In Free Agents? Maybe. In Short Term? I guess so. In Long Term? Who knows?
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
State of The Process
With Liberty Ballers and half of Philadelphia groveling at Sam Hinkie's feet and the other half calling for an end to Tankadelphia, I thought it might be a good time to evaluate what we've seen so far.
Of course, Jerry Colangelo was just hired to either advise, help or usurp Hinkie so clearly ownership thinks that something has been amiss.
It is true that the Sixers have been unlucky in the draft lottery. Nerlens Noel (injured) fell to them as did Joel Embiid. Brett Brown even said after the 2014 draft that he expected to get Wiggins and Stauskas not injured Embiid and away Saric.
Recent events have not painted Hinkie in the best light. Kristaps Porzingis (NY, pick 4) is spreading the floor and blocking shots for the Knicks while Jahlil Okafor (pick 3) is ground-bound on the Sixers. Okafor has also had disciplinary problems--and some say that Duke even hid some of his fighting issues from the public. Hinkie was too slow in punishing Okafor and gave him a slap on the wrist since Okafor is one of the Important Assets.
Let's review what happened:
Sam Hinkie was hired to great fanfare and in his first season showed a willingness to trade, a penchant for secrecy, the courage to make an impulsive deal, and a strong valuation of future assets vis-a-vis present ones. His first big move was trading then-All-Star Jrue Holiday to NO for Nerlens Noel and a future pick. He would later trade Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen to Indiana basically for nothing. He would also trade Spencer Hawes to Cleveland for a second rounder and Henry Sims. He added Hollis Thompson (whose still on the team). He kept Thaddeus Young. Michael Carter-Williams won rookie of the year despite inflated stats.
Year two saw the return of Noel. The epic punch-in-the-stomach 2014 draft that saw two first round picks deferred (though the swap of the No. 10 pick for a Saric, a 1st and 2nd looked good on paper if you forget that the No. 10 was the very good Elfrid Payton) and a couple good-looking 2nd rounders in KJ McDaniels and Jerami Grant. The team seemed to be gelling when MCW was traded to Milwaukee for a future Lakers pick and KJ McDaniels was traded to HOU for Isaiah Canaan. Thad Young was jettisoned for a pick.
This year the draft brought in Jahlil Okafor and Rishaun Holmes but the team is an abysmal 1-21 due to no experienced players (Luc Mbah a Moute--a good defender and vet--is gone; so is PG Ish Smith) and some mismatched parts. Nic Stauskas was acquired through trade but he doesn't start on the team. Noel and Okafor so far cannot play together. Noel has regressed. For the second year in a row, both Embiid and Saric are not playing. There is no real PG--Tony Wroten (!) and Kendall Marshall are supposed to be the saviors and Carl Landry (what?!) is supposed to be the veteran presence. The team was just annihilated by the Spurs and hired Jerry Colangelo.
Current Assets:
After a teardown year and two drafts, Sam Hinkie has better future picks than he does current players. Embiid, Noel and Okafor will not be able to all play together. One or even two of them will have to be swapped out. Stauskas and Thompson are both decent shooters--though Hollis may be the better of the two at this point. Okafor is useless on defense and Noel is useless on offense. Robert Covington, a D-League find last year, is proving a decent rotation guy. Jerami Grant shows flashes. Isaiah Canaan is just OK.
Hinkie has a lot of misses: Furkhan Aldemir (cut after one year and the only really substantial FA contract player signed); MCW (traded after one year-plus); Canaan for KJ McDaniels (can't vouch for that one and I hate that he equated it as a swap of one 2nd round pick for two--these are players and a future 2nd rounder guarantees nothing); Nic Stauskas (is he Jimmer Fredette or will he improve??); Okafor over Porzingis; Noel and MCW over Antetokounmpo and Gobert; Embiid over Marcus Smart; Saric for Elfrid Payton and picks; and why did he trade Jason Thompson for a completely useless pick swap from Golden State?
He has some hits too: Okafor does look good; Noel looked great last year; Covington was a nice find; the Jrue and Saric trades got back great value; the Stauskas trade will net a future first from Sacto and meaningless pick swaps; a slew of second rounders.
The 2016 Draft:
Due to various trades the Sixers are in prime position to improve with the 2016 draft but only if Hinkie views the present as somewhat important.
I think the hope for this draft is a little overblown given that the Lakers pick will probably not convey (it's top 3 protected and they're the second worst team) and that the other two picks belong to Miami and OKC so they will sit somewhere between 21 and 28 (and not the mid-round picks they could've been last year).
Best case the Sixers get a top-3 pick and the Lakers at number 4 or 5 plus the two later picks.
More realistically they get a top-3 pick and don't get the Lakers pick. So they will add one potentially great player and two decent first round picks. They are limited in who will fit on their team due to their overabundance of bigs (Can we still get that Noel for Smart swap?). A PG and wings are absolutely necessary. Drafting another center to add to Holmes, Saric, Embiid, Noel, and Okafor would be kinda dumb.
Additionally, Saric and Embiid are due to actually play next year.
So the Sixers should have a team that looks a little like this (assuming they take a PG with their highest 1st rounder):
PG 1st rounder Backups: Marshall, Wroten, McConnell
SG Stauskas/Thompson Backups: 1st rounder, Canaan
SF Covington Backups: 1st rounder, Sampson
PF Okafor Backups: Saric, Holmes, J. Grant
C Embiid Backups: Noel
That's seventeen players--more than they can actually carry on their team. If healthy the above team would be much better than the current perhaps-historically-bad squad. They'd still need a year or two to get better. They would not obviously have their anchor player though Embiid and/or the new first rounder can be that.
In 2017, they may get the Lakers pick (which let's say will be no. 7) and their own pick (let's guess no. 5). So their team ould then shed some stragglers and field a team with something like seven high first round picks.
In sum, things look really bad now but will get noticeably better soon and even better in later seasons. And that's even without making a trade to clear the big man logjam.
Of course, Jerry Colangelo was just hired to either advise, help or usurp Hinkie so clearly ownership thinks that something has been amiss.
It is true that the Sixers have been unlucky in the draft lottery. Nerlens Noel (injured) fell to them as did Joel Embiid. Brett Brown even said after the 2014 draft that he expected to get Wiggins and Stauskas not injured Embiid and away Saric.
Recent events have not painted Hinkie in the best light. Kristaps Porzingis (NY, pick 4) is spreading the floor and blocking shots for the Knicks while Jahlil Okafor (pick 3) is ground-bound on the Sixers. Okafor has also had disciplinary problems--and some say that Duke even hid some of his fighting issues from the public. Hinkie was too slow in punishing Okafor and gave him a slap on the wrist since Okafor is one of the Important Assets.
Let's review what happened:
Sam Hinkie was hired to great fanfare and in his first season showed a willingness to trade, a penchant for secrecy, the courage to make an impulsive deal, and a strong valuation of future assets vis-a-vis present ones. His first big move was trading then-All-Star Jrue Holiday to NO for Nerlens Noel and a future pick. He would later trade Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen to Indiana basically for nothing. He would also trade Spencer Hawes to Cleveland for a second rounder and Henry Sims. He added Hollis Thompson (whose still on the team). He kept Thaddeus Young. Michael Carter-Williams won rookie of the year despite inflated stats.
Year two saw the return of Noel. The epic punch-in-the-stomach 2014 draft that saw two first round picks deferred (though the swap of the No. 10 pick for a Saric, a 1st and 2nd looked good on paper if you forget that the No. 10 was the very good Elfrid Payton) and a couple good-looking 2nd rounders in KJ McDaniels and Jerami Grant. The team seemed to be gelling when MCW was traded to Milwaukee for a future Lakers pick and KJ McDaniels was traded to HOU for Isaiah Canaan. Thad Young was jettisoned for a pick.
This year the draft brought in Jahlil Okafor and Rishaun Holmes but the team is an abysmal 1-21 due to no experienced players (Luc Mbah a Moute--a good defender and vet--is gone; so is PG Ish Smith) and some mismatched parts. Nic Stauskas was acquired through trade but he doesn't start on the team. Noel and Okafor so far cannot play together. Noel has regressed. For the second year in a row, both Embiid and Saric are not playing. There is no real PG--Tony Wroten (!) and Kendall Marshall are supposed to be the saviors and Carl Landry (what?!) is supposed to be the veteran presence. The team was just annihilated by the Spurs and hired Jerry Colangelo.
Current Assets:
After a teardown year and two drafts, Sam Hinkie has better future picks than he does current players. Embiid, Noel and Okafor will not be able to all play together. One or even two of them will have to be swapped out. Stauskas and Thompson are both decent shooters--though Hollis may be the better of the two at this point. Okafor is useless on defense and Noel is useless on offense. Robert Covington, a D-League find last year, is proving a decent rotation guy. Jerami Grant shows flashes. Isaiah Canaan is just OK.
Hinkie has a lot of misses: Furkhan Aldemir (cut after one year and the only really substantial FA contract player signed); MCW (traded after one year-plus); Canaan for KJ McDaniels (can't vouch for that one and I hate that he equated it as a swap of one 2nd round pick for two--these are players and a future 2nd rounder guarantees nothing); Nic Stauskas (is he Jimmer Fredette or will he improve??); Okafor over Porzingis; Noel and MCW over Antetokounmpo and Gobert; Embiid over Marcus Smart; Saric for Elfrid Payton and picks; and why did he trade Jason Thompson for a completely useless pick swap from Golden State?
He has some hits too: Okafor does look good; Noel looked great last year; Covington was a nice find; the Jrue and Saric trades got back great value; the Stauskas trade will net a future first from Sacto and meaningless pick swaps; a slew of second rounders.
The 2016 Draft:
Due to various trades the Sixers are in prime position to improve with the 2016 draft but only if Hinkie views the present as somewhat important.
I think the hope for this draft is a little overblown given that the Lakers pick will probably not convey (it's top 3 protected and they're the second worst team) and that the other two picks belong to Miami and OKC so they will sit somewhere between 21 and 28 (and not the mid-round picks they could've been last year).
Best case the Sixers get a top-3 pick and the Lakers at number 4 or 5 plus the two later picks.
More realistically they get a top-3 pick and don't get the Lakers pick. So they will add one potentially great player and two decent first round picks. They are limited in who will fit on their team due to their overabundance of bigs (Can we still get that Noel for Smart swap?). A PG and wings are absolutely necessary. Drafting another center to add to Holmes, Saric, Embiid, Noel, and Okafor would be kinda dumb.
Additionally, Saric and Embiid are due to actually play next year.
So the Sixers should have a team that looks a little like this (assuming they take a PG with their highest 1st rounder):
PG 1st rounder Backups: Marshall, Wroten, McConnell
SG Stauskas/Thompson Backups: 1st rounder, Canaan
SF Covington Backups: 1st rounder, Sampson
PF Okafor Backups: Saric, Holmes, J. Grant
C Embiid Backups: Noel
That's seventeen players--more than they can actually carry on their team. If healthy the above team would be much better than the current perhaps-historically-bad squad. They'd still need a year or two to get better. They would not obviously have their anchor player though Embiid and/or the new first rounder can be that.
In 2017, they may get the Lakers pick (which let's say will be no. 7) and their own pick (let's guess no. 5). So their team ould then shed some stragglers and field a team with something like seven high first round picks.
In sum, things look really bad now but will get noticeably better soon and even better in later seasons. And that's even without making a trade to clear the big man logjam.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Embiid, the Kings Trade and the NBA's Stupid Moratorium
The news that Joel Embiid will "probably" be out for the season is yet another stomach punch in the now-excruciating Sam Hinkie rebuild.
Hinkie supporters have always pinned their hopes to Embiid and his potential. And, surely, we all saw that potential. But the kid never even finished a season of college basketball and will now be out for two straight seasons (more if you count the missed time at Kansas). To say that this guy is a foundational piece is to build your foundation on a really shaky foot.
I hate to say that I can't be optimistic about this. As much as Hinkie preaches "patience" and "process" what he did in the 2014 Draft is inexcusable. He nearly broke the professional sporting world's losing-streak record to grab the 3rd pick in that draft and decided to double down on injured centers. Every fantasy owner knows that you don't want to bet on too many injured guys...they tend to get REINJURED. They also tend to stay out longer than you hoped and produce less than you hoped. Noel was a nice get. Saric may be too. But how do you destroy your team and then use your two first rounders on guys that won't play for AT LEAST TWO YEARS??? Then, you go and trade your starting PG in the hopes of showcasing a guy you scouted, Isaiah Canaan, who by all accounts is not better than fringe NBA journeyman Ish Smith.
It seems that Hinkie's words post-Draft were very telling. The guy whose followers praise for his "best player available" strategy said: "I hope we would have" when asked if he would've still taken Okafor if Embiid weren't injured. Okafor was probably the best player available, but Hinkie knew this was major. He put out a freakin' press release about it.
He is actually showing signs of desperation. Papering over the Embiid debacle with talk of seeing every doctor in the world (whatever). As if doctors visits will somehow translate to championship rings. Going to see if Dario Saric can somehow wriggle out of his Euro contract (he couldn't). Giving interviews! And talking about his process and plan. Releasing the Embiid news over a lazy weekend and trying to package the news with the Stauskas trade.
The OKC rebuild everyone wants was predicated on the Blazers taking Oden and the Thunder taking Durant. Doug Collins' downfall came when he took Evan Turner over Derrick Favors and Demarcus Cousins--and then traded Iguodala and Vucevic for Andrew Bynum to try to cover that mistake. In 2014, Wiggins went to Minnesota (via Cleveland) and Embiid (that year's Bowie/Okafor) went to Philly. In 2015, Hinkie finally went for a more sure thing taking Okafor.
But it's one step forward two steps back with this rebuild. In year THREE, the teams starting point guard will either be a wild Tony Wroten, the unsigned Ish Smith, or a tiny guy (Canaan or Pierre Jackson). The starting two will probably be Stauskas (or Hollis Thompson). Robert Covington will be the three. The team is rejoicing over the picks it got from Sacto but Sacramento, a perennial bottom dweller, had no need for Carl Landry, Jason Thompson or Stauskas and who knows what will come of all the pick swaps?
The Sixers put out a This Starts Now marketing campaign just before the trade deadline this year with a pic of Embiid, Noel and MCW. Guess what? Only one of those guys actually plays for this team. Embiid is the anti-Iverson: he only practices, never plays games. MCW is gone. Noel and Okafor provide some hope but how is the team's roster so threadbare going into year three of the Hinkie remodel.
Yes, LUCK plays a part but luck is what Hinkie has based this rebuild on. The luck of the draw. The luck of the lottery. The luck of drafting the right 19 year old player.
Let's not pretend that Embiid is an established Hakeem Olajuwon sitting on the bench. By the time he plays he'll be rusty and behind the developmental curve. Perhaps his star will emerge eventually but while we wait, Rudy Gobert solidifies the Jazz bench, Giannis Antetokounmpo looks like a stud, Elfrid Payton throws lobs to Aaron Gordon. The Sixers passed on all of these players. Let's think about that next time Hinkie is lionized as a hero just for gathering potential.
2016 will surely be a big year now with Saric, maybe-Embiid, and four firsts probably joining the roster. So in Year Four potentially this team will be a couple years behind Boston and Orlando, and a couple more years behind Utah and Minnesota. Playoffs in Year Six? Who the hell knows?
In other news:
- The Embiid debacle is a bitter pill to swallow any way you cut it, but the trade with the Kings was great. Carl Landry is not very useful to a team that has Furkhan Aldemir, Jerami Grant and Arsalan Kazemi. But Jason Thompson is a decent player who unlike Jason Richardson can ball some in addition to mentoring. The Sixers wanted Nic Stauskas and now they got him. That's a nice reset of the 2014 Draft and hopefully the kid can add some much, much, much needed shooting (just watched them play LA Lakers in summer league and Sixers have no shooters!). The 2018 pick (unprotected in 2019 and on) will be nice whenever it arrives and the pick swaps may or may not have value, they're like added fuel to the lottery. On the pick swaps: Sixers don't get them if Kings are out of the top 10 since Kings owe Bulls their pick in that case. I think the Sixers will be worse than the Kings this year, so perhaps next year the swaps go into effect. A great trade overall. Ultimate value will be predicated on the play of Stauskas and Thompson and whatever the swaps and picks become. On the downside: I know everyone is pillorying the Kings over this but, from their perspective, they could say that they gave a pick and some guys they don't want/need for A LOT of cap room that they used on some decent guys (Belinelli, Rondo, and Koufos). If Stauskas and the pick swaps don't amount to much, then perhaps the Kings weren't so nuts after all. Either way, a great get for the Sixers though I'll reserve judgment until I see how good Sauce Castillo can be on the court (he only averaged 4.4ppg on a bad Kings team).
- The NBA moratorium on free agent signing where everyone comes to verbal agreements has got to go! The DeAndre Jordan saga, funny as it was, is just one highlight. More important I think were the Kings and Suns salary dump trades that were done to free up cap space even though neither team knew who they would or could sign or even how much cap room they would have. The cap amount ended up being higher than expected and the Suns didn't get Lamarcus Aldridge, so why did they still trade Marcus Morris to the Pistons? Just weird. At least announce the cap figure first if you want to have a hokey verbal-agreements period.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Sam Hinkie's Plan Part 3
I think the naysayers are a little off on this one. Hinkie has said repeatedly that he believes in optionality meaning keeping your options open. The scuttlebutt says that Hinkie would have liked to have Andrew Wiggins, Dario Saric, Nerlens Noel, Avery Bradley, and D'Angelo Russell at this point. That would be a very good and balanced team.
The problem is that you don't create a team in a vacuum. There's competition. There's also chance where the draft is involved. So instead of the above the Sixers have Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, and some other stuff. Saric will come in next year along with what could be four other first rounders (at least two will be low firsts as Miami and OKC project to do a lot better this coming year).
A few predilections of Hinkie's that we've divined so far:
The problem is that you don't create a team in a vacuum. There's competition. There's also chance where the draft is involved. So instead of the above the Sixers have Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, and some other stuff. Saric will come in next year along with what could be four other first rounders (at least two will be low firsts as Miami and OKC project to do a lot better this coming year).
A few predilections of Hinkie's that we've divined so far:
- He likes to draft players with athleticism who can't shootc yet. Will he teach them to shoot? We shall see. MCW and Noel examples make this a question mark.
- He doesn't mind renting his cap space for first rounders.
- It's unclear if he's loyal to any of the players he currently has. First it was the triumvirate of Embiid, Noel and MCW then just Embiid and Noel now is Embiid on the outs?
- The rebuild, everyone thought, would succeed or fail based on the projection of Embiid. Now with Okafor either one can succeed and the Sixers will be in great shape. To this end, it's clear that Hinkie may be one to hedge his bets.
- He seems to not be concerned at all about on-court product, chemistry, the point guard position, or veteran leadership.
- He likes second round picks. He got some great ones in 2014. Most second round picks are crap though.
- He has sat out free agency two years straight and it's unclear if he'll do anything this year.
- He is tight-lipped and feels like being tight-lipped is a strategy. It certainly adds to the talk of a Plan.
So is there a Plan?:
- Most evidence points to there being a strategy not a point-by-point plan.
- Evidence for a Plan comes from Hinkie's acquistion (or, rather, Morey's acquisition) of James Harden via a series of asset grabs and maneuvers. The Rockets though are in a perpetual wind turbine of trying to attract every big FA out there. Philly was never a big FA destination. The Sixers always had to acquire big names via trade with the exception of the Elton Brand signing. I don't see big FA acquisitions in Philly unless the team becomes a true contender.
- The whole Joel Embiid thing is bordering on ridiculous. Has Embiid deep-sixed the whole rebuild by (1) falling to the Sixers at 3 instead of Wiggins, (2) being out a year-plus, (3) giving hope that he's the next big league star despite scant evidence, (4) forcing them to take a third center in 2015? Was his pick a mulligan in 2014?
- In sum: if there was a Plan, it's met some detours. So far it's unclear that there's a point-by-point plan. There is a strategy. It's unclear when that strategy hits Phase 2. Phase 1 is blow-up/asset acquisition. Phase 2 is going for it. On trade deadline day 2015 the team put out a new marketing campaign saying "This Starts Now" featuring Embiid, MCW, and Noel. Will things start in 2016? This is the big question, when will Hinkie finally play a hand.
Sam Hinkie's Plan Part 2!
In the 2014 Draft, Hinkie collected Joel Embiid (injured), Dario Saric (2 years away), KJ McDaniels, Jordan McRae (sent to Australia), Vasilije Micic (Euro Stash), and Jerami Grant. Instead of adding as many as five good players in a very deep draft, the team immediately added only two second rounders.
There were then a series of deals (in the season and off-season) that brought in-and-out players like Ronnie Turiaf, Marquis Teague, and Andrei Kirilenko, none of whom played for the Sixers. All of these deals exacted Hinkie's "troll toll" of a second round pick.
The only free-agent acquisition the Sixers reportedly attempted was a move toward the Celtics' Avery Bradley.
The only first-rounder the Sixers obtained was for Thad Young in the Kevin Love trade.
Now Hinkie had completely blown up the team with a mess of second rounders to show for it, a first rounder that would come from Miami, an out-for-the-year center, a Euro stash guy, a center coming back from injury, and some prospects like Tony Wroten, Hollis Thompson, and Jerami Grant.
Wishful thinkers thought the team would be loaded soon with an Embiid that was the next Hakeem, Dario Saric who was the next Toni Kukoc, Nerlens Noel swatting shots, etc.
Pessimists saw a bare cupboard full of "assets."
I worried that the Sixers, like the Rockets before them, would become a revolving door team that players would avoid. No one wants to be a chess piece in someone else's game. You want to be a respected employee of a loyal organization.
The team began coalescing around MCW and Noel and new-addition Robert Covington until the 2015 trade deadline when Hinkie hit reset again. The (really) poor-shooting MCW was traded to the Suns for the Lakers first-round pick. JaVale McGee was added with a first-rounder from OKC coming to Hinkie for his troubles. Then, KJ McDaniels, who looked like a low-cost keeper, was swapped for Isaiah Canaan and yet another second-rounder. Hinkie, on that trade, said that he'd essentially gotten two 2nd rounders for one. Well, whoop-de-freakin-do. He also seemed to be high on his latest Rockets pick-up Canaan like he was on his previous Rockets scoop-ups Royce White (never made the team) and Furkan Aldemir (playing despite performance saying he shouldn't).
This reset was yet another stomach punch. What started with a bold move: Jrue for Noel and Saric, now looked like his only move: trade budding players for future picks. With no PG, Brett Brown became depressed for the first time and said he didn't want to coach a bunch of "gypsies." Isaiah Canaan looked worse than pick-up Ish Smith. Thomas Robinson, another pick-up, looked decent. Noel raised his game. Covington flitted in and out of being a good player. Aldemir got some minutes. The season ended with a whimper.
Then came the 2015 Draft. What could've been as many as four first-rounders turned out to be 1 when OKC and Miami fell out of the playoffs and the Lakers made sure that they optimized their chances of keeping a top 5 pick. The Lakers got pick 2, the Sixers pick 3. The draft went: 1 Minnesota (now with Wiggins): Karl-Anthony Towns; 2 Lakers: D'Angelo Russell; 3 Sixers: Jahlil Okafor. The Sixers then forewent their usual wheeling and dealing in round two and instead went for two low-ceiling players (JP Tokoto and Richaun Holmes) and two Euro stash picks that didn't sound like they would ever come to the US (Hinkie never really talked them up).
Now some of the "dividends" from the original blow-up were coming to fruition and none were actual material things. A bunch of detritus in the 2015 second round, some Euro stashes for later. On the court chemistry, cohesion, and consistency were thrown out the window. And, yes, Hinkie now had three potentially elite centers and no decent point or shooting guards and only Covington at SF.
Obviously Hinkie backers can say he got SOMETHING for Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen, and Spencer Hawes but when that something is a Euro Stash pick that will never come over that something is actually nothing.
The 2015 trade deadline pick-up on two first rounders in addition to the Thad Young trade (Billy King now gets to pay him in Brooklyn!) should turn up 4 firsts next year. Picking best player available should yield some decent players and hopefully begin filling out the roster, but we're talking about three LOST seasons in order to get to a fourth where your roster will still be one of the youngest in the league. Meanwhile, Hinkie has passed on Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Elfrid Payton. These three guys are healthy and can play basketball well.
The next post will deal with the question of whether Hinkie has a plan.
There were then a series of deals (in the season and off-season) that brought in-and-out players like Ronnie Turiaf, Marquis Teague, and Andrei Kirilenko, none of whom played for the Sixers. All of these deals exacted Hinkie's "troll toll" of a second round pick.
The only free-agent acquisition the Sixers reportedly attempted was a move toward the Celtics' Avery Bradley.
The only first-rounder the Sixers obtained was for Thad Young in the Kevin Love trade.
Now Hinkie had completely blown up the team with a mess of second rounders to show for it, a first rounder that would come from Miami, an out-for-the-year center, a Euro stash guy, a center coming back from injury, and some prospects like Tony Wroten, Hollis Thompson, and Jerami Grant.
Wishful thinkers thought the team would be loaded soon with an Embiid that was the next Hakeem, Dario Saric who was the next Toni Kukoc, Nerlens Noel swatting shots, etc.
Pessimists saw a bare cupboard full of "assets."
I worried that the Sixers, like the Rockets before them, would become a revolving door team that players would avoid. No one wants to be a chess piece in someone else's game. You want to be a respected employee of a loyal organization.
The team began coalescing around MCW and Noel and new-addition Robert Covington until the 2015 trade deadline when Hinkie hit reset again. The (really) poor-shooting MCW was traded to the Suns for the Lakers first-round pick. JaVale McGee was added with a first-rounder from OKC coming to Hinkie for his troubles. Then, KJ McDaniels, who looked like a low-cost keeper, was swapped for Isaiah Canaan and yet another second-rounder. Hinkie, on that trade, said that he'd essentially gotten two 2nd rounders for one. Well, whoop-de-freakin-do. He also seemed to be high on his latest Rockets pick-up Canaan like he was on his previous Rockets scoop-ups Royce White (never made the team) and Furkan Aldemir (playing despite performance saying he shouldn't).
This reset was yet another stomach punch. What started with a bold move: Jrue for Noel and Saric, now looked like his only move: trade budding players for future picks. With no PG, Brett Brown became depressed for the first time and said he didn't want to coach a bunch of "gypsies." Isaiah Canaan looked worse than pick-up Ish Smith. Thomas Robinson, another pick-up, looked decent. Noel raised his game. Covington flitted in and out of being a good player. Aldemir got some minutes. The season ended with a whimper.
Then came the 2015 Draft. What could've been as many as four first-rounders turned out to be 1 when OKC and Miami fell out of the playoffs and the Lakers made sure that they optimized their chances of keeping a top 5 pick. The Lakers got pick 2, the Sixers pick 3. The draft went: 1 Minnesota (now with Wiggins): Karl-Anthony Towns; 2 Lakers: D'Angelo Russell; 3 Sixers: Jahlil Okafor. The Sixers then forewent their usual wheeling and dealing in round two and instead went for two low-ceiling players (JP Tokoto and Richaun Holmes) and two Euro stash picks that didn't sound like they would ever come to the US (Hinkie never really talked them up).
Now some of the "dividends" from the original blow-up were coming to fruition and none were actual material things. A bunch of detritus in the 2015 second round, some Euro stashes for later. On the court chemistry, cohesion, and consistency were thrown out the window. And, yes, Hinkie now had three potentially elite centers and no decent point or shooting guards and only Covington at SF.
Obviously Hinkie backers can say he got SOMETHING for Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen, and Spencer Hawes but when that something is a Euro Stash pick that will never come over that something is actually nothing.
The 2015 trade deadline pick-up on two first rounders in addition to the Thad Young trade (Billy King now gets to pay him in Brooklyn!) should turn up 4 firsts next year. Picking best player available should yield some decent players and hopefully begin filling out the roster, but we're talking about three LOST seasons in order to get to a fourth where your roster will still be one of the youngest in the league. Meanwhile, Hinkie has passed on Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Elfrid Payton. These three guys are healthy and can play basketball well.
The next post will deal with the question of whether Hinkie has a plan.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
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!
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!
Pageviews Way Up!
I think I'm getting loads of pageviews FROM MYSELF! This site is gonna hit it big!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)