Lol Crowder??? He was the 8th man in Dallas at the time, Boston developed him. Celtics were lucky to get anything for Rondo, he was about to walk that summer. Hinkie helped create the dumpster fire by never targeting players with upside in the league. He opted to sign D-League talent and 2nd round picks to fill out his roster over bringing in actual NBA players. If you don't even try to make an acquisition to have NBA talent, I don't sympathize, its not hard to sign a player or two with SOME talent, there are only 30 teams in the NBA.
Their fans are idiots. They'll willingly go along with a decade long rebuild to be the embarrassment of the league, with no guarantees of anything more than a mid-round playoff spot. I don't see how they're even remotely close to having a player who can help them contend. They're in for even more years of tanking, but at least they'll be focused on trying to develop their talent now.
J.R. You absolutely have one of the worse opinions on almost everything basketball related on this board. I don't know if you're trolling or not, but for the love of God please go back to your robot gimmick. I much prefer you just copy and pasting news instead of trying to have a basketball discussion because you're really bad at that. Thank you.
I feel bad for Hinkie. He didn't even get a chance. This season and the 2 before have been bad win-loss wise, but he wasn't killing the franchise at all. He always put them in a good position, and they still are in a good position. The Sixers may not have oh-my-god levels of players with potential right now, but it's not like they don't have a future. They can easily come back next season and win 25-30 games if they have a decent summer. Who would have known that Joel Embiid would miss his second season? His potential was so high, and it sort of still is. That isn't Hinkie's fault. A lot of Sixers fans are disappointed that Hinkie had to step down. People thinking this is great for the Sixers are just guys who are on the outside looking in.
Did a bad job and at some point his ways, just like Morey's, will turn people the wrong way. Assets, sure. Good draft picks? Highly questionable. This guy might be good with numbers, but that's about it. He didn't look at the modern NBA and drafting Noel, Embiid and Okafor was one big failure.
Too bad for Hinkie. Sucks for being in a terrible situation, and all he can do is tell people it will get better soon. When in reality, any good player they have they will then trade him away. Will Morey welcome Hinkie back?
Even if the idea was sound, there's not way you can use 4 top lotto picks all on bigs, two of whom were injured and one of whom is a Euro. It's moronic, why it hasn't worked, and why he got fired. He probably got fired/quit just to ensure they don't draft another PF/C at the top of the draft, lol. If the Sixers get 1/2 and don't draft Ingram but opt for Simmons they're idiots.
Bad move by 76ers management. 76ers hired Hinkie for tanking in the first palce. If you not willing the wait couple of years why did you hire him? They hired a guy who gave 53 million to Hedo Turkoglu, 18 million to Landry Fields, 24 million to Jason Kapano and also gave Bargnani an extension. Hinkie isn't consider good gm yet but he had lots of good assets for big move. If they were let him to do work this offseason i think outcome could be much diffirent. I would bring Hinkie back to the our front office without a doubt.
No, this year was a disaster. You'd think by year three they'd at least have started to find some complementary pieces to start developing for whatever star they hope to get. That's what the Celtics are doing. Before Isaiah, they had a bunch of young potential, that they were developing for future assets or part of the final team, the type of talent that were available to the Sixers if they wanted. That's what Portland is doing, same with Denver. You can have some talent and still be terrible, but looked he was trying to bottom out again. What if Colangelo doesn't step in and they never get Ish? 5 wins? Maybe? That almost guarantees Noel and Okafor are gone, and the rest are probably 12th men, or in the D-League if they could only manage 5 wins. They have no identity, no culture, no style of play, very limited talent, what kind of plan is that?
Most GM's will say you need a little luck for "plans" to come into fruition. The Spurs were lucky to be as bad as they were the year Duncan was available in the draft... of course, they still had to continue to draft well and scout internationally well to become a dynasty, but they lucked into their foundational piece. Likewise, the Rockets have had a combination of lucky and unlucky circumstances dating back to the Steve Francis acquisition (lucky that you get a talented disgruntled player for a bag of nothing)... and then you're able to ship him off as the centerpiece on a T-mac trade. They were lucky to get Yao. Unlucky that both players were injured too often to not be able to make a deeper run. They were also very fortunate to be in the position to trade for Harden... a player with supreme talent that should have never hit the trade market to begin with. Hinkie never seemed to get that one player/move that would be more fortunate than based on his smarts. Without that, all his moves were bound to be failures... and the bottom line is that this team is no closer to getting good now than it was when he first took the job (despite all the young draft picks).
If they would have given him a few more years, I think they could have been set up for contender status for a long time. From his resignation letter:
Exactly, if the ping pong balls had bounced differently he'd be hailed as a genius. That's the difference between Embiid & Okafor (who both may still turn out to be beasts) and Parker & Towns. Not to mention they're still loaded with picks, including a likely top 3 this year.
This is rather my feeling. He started on this tank-to-the-championship strategy as soon as he came on. Sixers ownership knew they needed to have a big appetite for losses to make this plan work. It looks like they did not. Maybe what yall are saying is right and it's his other leadership qualities that sunk him, and the Sixers would have been okay with tanking and losing if only he was better at communicating, developing people, and so on. But it mostly looks to me like they were tired of being tankers. Anyway, I don't really have any more confidence in their future. I respect Jerry Colangelo, but he's 76 now and probably not working all that hard. Bryan Colangelo I've never been much impressed with. He has assets to work with now, but do I expect him to deal them wisely? Not really.
With all that tanking what pieces do they have? Who knows if Embiid is ever going to play. Noel is going to get overpaid for what he does. Does Okafor want to be there? This is not sam presti hitting on every lottery pick. If you tank long enough eventually you will run into a Lebron James. That isn't a viable strategy.
It's actually a very thoughtful letter. I mean, ever since they made the NBA Finals with Iverson (and had no shot of winning), the 76ers before Hinke made the playoffs in the weak East 6 times in 11 years, reaching the 2nd round twice. It seems okay, but that's the epitome of mediocrity. Their win rate over that time was .480. In a zero-sum league with 7 game playoffs, you're just not going to win a championship with that same model over the next decade.
If you listen to that podcast, it's slightly disturbing how he defends the process over another path he admits was an option, and might've been just as successful, which was the Celtics way. He basically destroyed the team for the best chance at getting the first pick, instead of maybe getting some prospect talents to develop and still have a chance at the first pick, but also some assets to trade. Okafor, Noel, and Embiid aren't blind, they can see how many wins they have this year. What's the point of getting assets, when they're just going to waste.
And this is ultimately why firing him is justifiable... regardless of whether or not his plan was executed correctly. They have no younger players that show the potential of being a franchise corner-stone. They're no closer to being better now than they were 3 years ago (and in many ways, they're worse)... and even if you're using a suck to get good strategy, you need to have some firm seeds planted by year 3. That and the way he treated staff and dealt with the press is all part of it...
You shame clutchfans and A Nightmare Before Christmas. JRs contributions to this board modestly quadruple the likes of yours. Yet you choose to degrade and sling mud? I do not get why you would insult someone who has so many contributions to this sight. --White Knight checking out for now.
