The biggest issue is ultimately they're instilling a culture of losing to keep gaining assets, which is completely counter to player development. They made MCW the future "face" of that organization, I remember the beginning of the year him thanking the crowds for coming out and supporting the 76ers as they go through this tough rebuild, then dumped his ass so quick to the curb. Embiid has bust potential all over him, reports of him being fat and out of shape, he's way more into clowning around on Twitter than seemingly caring about developing his game. And as soon as they find a future star they can rally around, whose to say he doesn't bounce out of Philly because he doesn't want to keep losing for years and years. Oh and if everything went right by the time Philly is relevant, the East should be much better. Milwaukee is the real team on the rise, two future stars in Giannis and Parker. A very solid player in Middleton. Some good rotational players. Even if you're rebuilding you still have to try and win. Why would players on an organization hell bent on losing feel like they should go in and put 100% in every day?
The Sixers are truly one of the most facinating teams in the NBA with a ton of ways to improve dramatically overnight. Alot of the old-timers just can't get over the supposed "tanking" that is mostly just perception. Go to their lockeroom and see if Brett Brown is telling these young players to lose game, and kick the ball out of bounds. Its sand bagging the past two years from the front office by stripping your team of veteran contracts other than the untradeable Jason Richardson. The Sixers roster next year looks like this (assuming they keep players with team options)- PG: Wroten, Canaan SG: Thompson, Sampson SF: Covington, Grant PF: Noel C: Embiid, Aldemir + 4 to 6 rookies. That's 9 players I would assume are brought back. Along with the McGee contract you are looking at 24.1 Add in the draft picks cap holds and you are looking at about 33 mil against the salary cap of 65 million. The Sixers have SIX draft picks this year. I could see them taking at least 4 players and trying to stash 2. If they take 6 then they will have their 15 man roster right there so in order to add a player as a free agent, they'd need to waive a player, or have a player or two stashed from this years draft. IMO, I think they need at least one veteran player on their roster like J. Richardson this year. Some interesting veteran players they might take back and absorb salary for future assets would be Jose Calderon, Gallinari, and some others. Also crazy idea but what if the Sixers did a trade for a super high salary player like Joe Johnson for the Nets 2019 first round pick, and the 2017 2nd round pick they have available? I wouldn't rule out Hinkie actually looking at a deal like this IF he thinks this years Sixers team will actually be decent enough to fight for a playoff spot..... highly unlikely but I still wouldn't rule it out. All in all I think they are in an interesting spot depending on what they do with they cap space not just this year, but next year too when they will have just an insane amount of cap space with the jump. So the big question really is, with all the young talent what does Hinkie do with the cap space he's going to have the next two years before he has to resign some young players like Noel? I think they can use it this year to absorb not just bad salary but good players. Or they go for maxing out someone like Jimmy Butler which wont be easy to sign and snatch away. More than likely I see them trading their way into salary this year, but unlike years past I wouldn't be shocked if that salary actually ends up being good players that make an impact. Should be a very interesting year to say the least.
Rockets trade Papa, Prigioni, Rights to Lull & T.J. For 4th Pick, J. Richardson & McGee...then Draft Russell...(or Kaminsky - who will be a Ryan Anderson Clone.)
-Neither Richardson nor McGee play for the Sixers anymore. J.Rich's contract expired, and Javalle was waived. -The Sixers have the 3rd pick... not the 4th. And for a team that has stripped down their team to add nothing but lottery talent, and taken back salary in order to both hit the salary floor and add picks/assets, kinda would be weird at this point to make this type of move. They'd basically have to think that Llull has greater upside potential than any guard in this draft, or any player available at #3.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NBPA told agents in meeting Monday that it is researching Philadelphia for possible violation of collective bargaining, sources tell RealGM.</p>— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/613353558554071040">June 23, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Danny Ainge is funny. Yes let me trade my top 5 big man prospect, and my potential top 3 PG talent (assuming they would take Russell) for your top 10 PG prospect, and two late firsts which neither will be future star prospects.
Saric was never coming this Summer anyways. He signed a two year deal last Summer with a 3rd year option. He was always staying at least two years. Given the way Saric has looked so far (meh to decent, but not otherworldly) I think its in his best interest to come over next year where he is still going to have a chance to be a starter, and play heavy minutes in a guaranteed role. If he waits longer and doesn't show that he's a world beater like Mirotic sort of did, then I think he's risking ever getting that chance that a team will take to blindly give him opportunity and pay him for it. He's going to get a Papanikolaou type of deal if he waits, and that's best case scenario. So unless Saric wants to gamble on himself, I think he comes over next year. If he looks like world beater next year, he's going to hold out and look for a Mirotic type of deal at the least. Either way he's going to want to come over in the next 3 years, but the question will be from Philly's perspective whether he's worth it financially at what he's going to ask for. If he's not worth it at that point (lets assume in 3 years they actually have salary on their roster, and want to maintain flexibility) then they severely miscalculated by taking Saric that high in the draft.
You know you would do the same exact thing, if you were 76ers FO brass. Obviously, you're not going to win the title, or even make the playoffs. Why not be crap and get a top pick? It's not like you're not playing the people you want to develop. It'd be a lot different if a team like OKC decided not to play Westbrook after Durant went down, just so OKC could get a top pick. That would warrant some anger from a basketball fan.
You're right; I agree with you 100%. Sorry it took so long to reply to your post. The MLB is more of a crapshoot, as you put it, because there are so many rounds in a player draft (up to 40), compared to just 2 in the NBA Draft. Many late round picks can blossom while developing in the Minors, but many early round picks can falter and never get called up to the Majors. The minors have so many affiliates before getting called up to "The Show" (as in R, A, AA, and AAA), while NBA just has the D-League. The Astros did improve their farm system because they traded away their own MLB-grade talent (such as Pence and Bud Norris, for example) to get prospects, those moves have paid off, IMO.
Even giving Hinkie the Rockets-connection benefit of the doubt, I can't make any sense of his draft this year. It's hard to fault him for the past years. The Embiid foot issue may come back to haunt him, but it's not like Aaron Gordon, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, etc. are blowing anyone away. Same with the prior year - Noel, MCW.... good picks. And I will wait to hold judgement on Saric... I suspect he will make a solid NBA player. I suspect they would have taken Russell if he was there, and certainly it would have hurt to let Okafor slip by you, when he had already slipped.... But: Noel, Embiid, Okafor, Saric.... it just doesn't make sense. If Embiid is finally healthy enough to play... which theoretically is a good thing right, there isn't enough time to develop them all properly, which they'll need to do to eventually move some of those assets along. Maybe he couldn't get anything of value for the pick. I would have traded back and gone Mudiay or Henzoja.
I agree with Mudiay or Henzoja or w/e. But I think he's stock piling BPAs until one star becomes disgruntled and they can snag him off the bad team.
Except they will be creating the pecking order of how valuable their own assets are by effectively having them always be competing against each other. plus it seems increasingly unlikely disgruntled stars are Going to be asking their agents to move them to Philadelphia. I get that every year he seems to have a big that should have gone a few spots earlier "fall" into his lap... I even get that you could argue this years version of that gave you the biggest gift since Okafors offensive upside is so obvious... But you've made your bed with Noel, Embiid and Saric. You have the Knicks and Magic both right there both of whom would likely have given you a little something something to swap picks... While still allowing the Sixers to get either Mudiay or Henzoja. Magic were reportedly suoer high on Krispas. Knicks would have killed for Okafor. Oh and didn't Hinkie draft like 2 more centers later in the draft? BPA is great. To fill out a roster. Not when you already have two young theoretical all stars at that position. Is a healthy Embiid a PF even? Yet to be seen!
They have to be considered playoff contenders or making the playoffs until that star considers joining them.
It makes perfect sense to pick ok4. For now embiid is like he doesnt exist. Philly doesnt know when he will step foot on the court and his skeletal system seems to be extremely prone to injuries. My issue is that noel isnt a pf. He is a pure center and idont see a fot with either ok4 or embiid. In the secind he should have gotten some guard besides tokoto or even moved up in late first with his myriad of assets and grabbed one. Lets see who they go after in free agency. They will make some offers. My guess to knight/ reggie/ middleton.
It just dawned to me that the Sixers had 5 Second Round picks in this draft, imagine what Morey would do with 5 underrated players.....
Pretenders. This is Hinkie's 3rd draft and he keep collecting big men with questionable health or suspect low post defense. Meanwhile he still doesn't have the face of the franchise. The idea of tanking and rebuilding with top picks in the draft is great if you can hit homeruns like the Thunder circa 2007-2009, but Hinkie is simply collecting assets at this point and not even filling a competitive roster like his mentor Morey did prior to Harden's arrival. Now I do like Hinkie's endgame. A quality big is the most coveted position in basketball and costs at a premium. At some point Hinkie's is going to unload one or more of these bigs to a desperate team in exchange for a superstar.
