I feel like this is not true. The major difference being that Morey was acquiring assets to position ourselves for a player like Harden. Hinkie does not seem to have the same mindset. Dude could easily throw together a nice offer for Love but will do no such thing. If you argue that Hinkie would be hesitant because Love would not re-sign, don't forget that Morey was willing to take the very same risk with Dwight before the ORL-LAL trade. Minor note, we traded Courtney Lee
Seriously though... Its not going to take another 2 years for Hinkie to find another future all-star calliber player on a rookie contract. He already has one player that is a building block for the future in MCW- Here's what Hinkie needs to do by the end of the 2015 season- 1. Have one of these next players display the ability to be a future star- -Embiid -Noel -2015 lottery pick round pick 2. Make one or two really good trades with his quiver of assets- 3. Develop 3 of the following players into quality rotation players- -Wroten(showed promise but dipped off later in the season) -Anderson (getting him back on the cheap & continues to get better) -KJ McDaniels (1st round talent. Could be great defensive player... steal of a pick) -Jerami Grant (great upside as an elite athlete) -Moultrie (not sure if he can turn if around) -Mullens (can he finally learn how to pass & defend? Can be quality stretch 4) 4. Use cap space to sign a player/s as early as next year. ............... There are plenty of ways for Hinkie to turn this thing around quicker than people expect, but the main catalyst is going to be how quickly (Noel, Embiid, 2015 lottery pick) show promise or bust. If I'm Hinkie, I like my chances, but to get higher probabilities, he HAD TO draft Embiid, and he HAS TO be bad one more year before exploring trades & free agency. If just one of those 3 players shows the ability to be a core foundational piece, it triggers Hinkie to expedite options 2 & 4 (trades & free agency) to improve the supporting roles if 3. never happened.
They got Russ Smith in 2nd as well as everyone's favorite wing defender KJ McDaniels. Sixers have some talent, question is will they all be able to play together due to overseas commitments and injury concerns.
Harden was quite a bit younger then Love is now, in fact Harden has been on the rockets for two seasons and is younger then Love is now if he went the 76ers. There is a reason they wanted wiggins they wanted to move this process along but they to take a chance on this center. And now one more season of losing and they will be loaded and will be set for a decade. And it will mostly be with players they drafted and developed. And there is a chance to it all completely falls apart. It will be fun to watch.
Hmmm: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>So, to recap, Sam Hinkie has turned Jrue Holiday into Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric, a future 1st, and a future 2nd.</p>— Max Rappaport (@MaxRappaport) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaxRappaport/statuses/482349980716650496">June 27, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Philadelphia 76ers aren’t just a part of the NBA draft. They’re an agent of chaos within it. Like Heath Ledger’s Joker character, they gleefully expose the absurdities of the system while flouting its laws. Last year they blew up their team to select a player who was too injured to help. Jrue Holiday was sent to the New Orleans Pelicans for a rehabbing Nerlens Noel and another first-round pick. Sam Hinkie took a team that was on the precipice of the playoffs, and plunged them off that cliff. It was quite intentional. Commissioner Adam Silver claims there has never been tanking in the NBA, but it’s difficult to call what Philadelphia did anything but that. That feat was followed up by yet another selection of a player too injured to help immediately. Joel Embiid has a long road back from his broken navicular bone, but the Sixers can wait. Philadelphia can also wait on their second lottery selection of Dario Saric (acquired through a trade with Orlando, along with a 2017 pick), who’s stashed away in Europe for what could be perpetuity. Actually, the waiting might be the point. So long as the Sixers aren’t close to great, they might as well be horrible. They might as well keep taking valued players who can’t demonstrate value on the court. They might as well keep doing this for a while because the NBA’s incentive structure is a little nuts. The worst of the losers get rewarded with the best of young talent. In the NBA, there’s so much focus from owners, fans and media on winning a championship. Being merely good isn’t enough. GMs and coaches who make the playoffs are not assured of job security. The guiding goal is to win a title, not just to win more games than you lose. That’s an unrealistic goal for a few teams with less talented rosters. And yet, a lot of those teams will try to win as many games as possible, as quickly as possible, because winning is a drug. The afterglow of a regular-season win is one of happiness. The fans cheer. Players and coaches are more relaxed, more liable to crack a smile. It’s easy to feel like things are on the right track. The 76ers have chosen to deny themselves many of those moments. They’ve opted for low attendance, bad ratings and an aesthetically awful product. They’ve embraced all this bad not because they see it as a route to being good, but because they see it as a route to being great. Philadelphia is the team of extremes. They’re seeking extreme badness as a means of ultimately achieving the other extreme of title contending greatness. And a funny thing happened on Thursday night at Barclays Center. Philadelphia fans owned the arena, showing up for this draft in droves and chanting throughout. There even was a brief, “Hinkie” chant during the proceedings. It was an unexpected outburst of positivity and celebration for a team that accumulated 63 losses last season. A lot of Sixers fans seem to be on board with this absurd-though-sound scheme, even if they aren’t showing up to the arena just yet. Philadelphia might be currently awful, but they’re awful with a defined plan in a league in which many teams are aimless. This awful team needs all the help it can get -- it just doesn’t want it, not yet. Because right now, the Sixers are happy to exchange pride for assets. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/69285/sixers-tank-machine-strikes-again
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sixers GM Sam Hinkie: Joel Embiid out 5-8 months, not 4-6</p>— Joey Daly (@basketballconvo) <a href="https://twitter.com/basketballconvo/statuses/482643056978444289">June 27, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
To be honest I'm not a fan of the moves Hinkie made, not because I didn't want them to tank but because Hinkie got the same players. Embiid and Noels are the same Defensive C with limited offense, and while Saric is nice you don't know when he's coming over. I guess we'll have to see how it turns out, I really thought they should've gotten Exum though
Philly is a weird market for the NBA. For its size and sports culture, you'd think they'd have a very passionate fanbase, at least something similar to the Knicks, but they just don't. Since Iverson left they've consistently ranked in the lower 3rd for attendance. You wonder how long this sucking can go on, its one thing if you already have a fanbase, but 76ers could just end up alienating more and more people. Until they have a contender, those fans will just ignore any progress thats happening. Its strange considering Philly produces ridiculously good NBA players and has four universities with strong basketball culture (Temple, Villanova, St. Joes, even Penn has history). Philly along with Chicago and LA have probably produced 40%-50% of the American NBA players.
The major thing I have against Hinkie's approach is that ANYONE can literally do what he is doing right now. There's no knowledge, no thought process, no effort being put into what he is doing. He's not being held accountable for the Sixers being terrible because that's exactly what he wants. Since when was something like this acceptable in professional sports? If I were Sixers fans, I'd be pissed too.
most Sixers fans aren't pissed, though, they're happy. They were mediocre for a long time and now they're making leaps to become great. It's a lot like when we were mediocre and a lot of people on here were in favour of tanking. I also do think there is more thought that needs to go into tanking - look at Cleveland they've had 3 1st picks and a 2nd pick since lebron left in 2010 and they still suck (on the upswing though). If they had competent management they should have been in the playoffs for at least 2 of the past 4 years.
That Sam Hinkie... http://www.philly.com/philly/sports..._s_sleuthing_garners_two_picks_for_76ers.html
And that's where you're sadly wrong. Putting out a bad roster is the easy part of tanking. It's HOW you get to that bad roster (smart trades for the right price while flipping assets to improve your war chest) and what you do with the assets once you have them that separates the accidental incompetence that permeates so many franchises versus the planned and controlled descent that Hinkie is currently engineering. One is like an uncontrolled plane crash where you might survive, and a controlled emergency descent where you're minimizing harm to the plane and passengers. Hinkie is the guy that will land you on the Hudson. Some of the other GM's end up doing a header into a mountainside. As for draft picks, Hinkie is doing exactly what he should be doing. Loading up on the maximum potential talent, developing them to see how they pan out, then planning to move the stuff he doesn't need for the best possible players and picks. How many times were Rockets fans screaming over losing players that were traded? Now look at where the Rockets are now. Would you rather be back in the days of 42 win seasons and out of the play offs with those lost players? Or be a top tier destination looking to round out with a 3rd star? Hinkie has a plan. It's well thought out and strategic in terms of maximize his chances of developing an all-star quality talent, give his team depth, and maximize flexibility should a top shelf player become available. The 76ers are looking to become the Rockets East. And as plans go there's a lot worse out there. As for the Fans, they'll be back in droves once Hinkie is done and they start seeing a young team with loads of potential winning games. The difference is that they'll be coming out to see a franchise with a solid foundation and future for growth.
