Sam Hinkie: The anti-Olshey

Hey maxiep. How have you been? Still in Colorado?

 

Exactly. Cleveland is a good example. When LBJ left they went into the toilet. They got the #1 pick three times in four years after that and it didn’t exactly make them a contender. It took LBJ coming back, along with trading for Love that got them to the finals. If James hadn’t returned, Cleveland would still suck, even with the high draft picks on the roster. Tanking is a total crapshoot that can hurt a team for a long time.

 

Giving away top 5 picks for nothing isn’t exactly signifying great drafting, imo. So is the one that barely played this year. That would be a number of wasted picks.

They didn’t draft well. They just consistently sucked long enough and there is still a looooong way to go before we can even say they are a contender.

They also have been somewhat lucky as another poster has pointed out; but luck is created... by tanking.

GSW drafted well, imo. Not the Sixers.

 

If that were true, we'd have three championships and Greg Oden three finals MVPs.

 

Hinkie's model leaves too much up to chance and the risk involved is too great. With an impatient Paul Allen as owner and this fanbase's hunger for wins, that approach isn't really feasible for this market. Gotta look toward Houston/Toronto/Boston as more realistic options. Gotta trade/draft well, and sign smart contracts.

 

Post Jordan Bulls wish that was all it took.

They're probably the favorite team to make it out of the East! I'd call that a contender.

GSW did draft amazingly well. (As well as trading amazingly well.) But it's easier to draft well when you have a top 3 pick.

 

Sixers were also very ballsy in drafting injured players. Nerlens Noel and Embiid. With our history with Oden and Roy, we're unlikely to take such chances.

 

That's crazy talk!

 

Brooklyn may tank for another 20 years without making the playoffs....they tank and trade their picks for overpaid vets

 

Also include Sacramento as a team that has sucked for years and still isn't any closer. There is no right way as it takes some skill as well as luck and by tanking teams are lucky to maybe get back to the level they were at. It's just the nature of the NBA.

 

Which is why I said the second statement - they are still a long ways away from reaching an NBA finals appearance, so we don’t know if it has ‘worked’, despite actively trying to tank the last decade. They are also one broken foot away from Yao Ming/Greg Oden level disaster.

I’m not sure what the Vegas odds are, but I like the winner of Raptors/Cavs. But the definition of a contender for me, is a team that realistically has a chance to win the championship year in and year out. They, in my opinion, don’t have a realistic chance to win an NBA championship this year or next. I believe Houston and GSW are the only contenders right now and Houston is just breaking into that category, realizing that contenders can change based on high-value acquisitions. Ben Simmons isn’t likely to become a 37% 3pt shooter next year, so development is slightly overrated, in comparison to acquisition of proven talent.

Next year, the Sixers have to deal with Kyrie AND Gordon Hayward coming back also.

Golden State got incredibly lucky, drafted well, and made great decisions.

Spurs and Golden state are model franchises. Utah and Heat to lesser extent.

I don’t recall them tanking for top 3 picks yearly, because they don’t have to, since they draft well... the first time, not the 8th.

 

This cannot be said enough. There is no possible way to replicate that series of events. It's like when The Admiral was injured, so the Spurs tanked hard and ended up with Tim Duncan -- times three.

 

I love the current Sixers team, they are very exciting and I have generally always liked that franchise so I am happy with it. However it needs to be said that:

A) they haven’t won anything yet, they have made the playoffs for the first time in eons and managed to beat Miami there but it’s long way from being a big achievement. Yes, their future looks promising with Simmons and Embiid but you never know how things are going to develop from here.

B) they wouldn’t have had a shot at Simmons if they had drafted well prior to 2016 draft. It’s the fact that they wasted picks on Noel (ahead of CJ among others), Carter-Williams (three spots ahead of Giannis in the same draft as Noel) and Okafor (ahead of Porzingis, Booker among others) that allowed them to tank for one more year and get Simmons. Then Simmons got injured which put them in position to trade up and take Fultz. This is not how rebuilding usually goes. Look at Sacramento and Phoenix who have been taking high picks for several years and still have very little to show for it outside of a few decent players (Booker, Fox, Bogdanovic, Jackson are the only truly good ones) and teams that don’t look like they are going in the right direction at all.

Philadelphia did a good job but it still took them a long time to get here and it took some luck to end up getting this group together too. If they had drafted Porzingis in 2015 they would have been better off than with Okafor but also wouldn’t have got Simmons so in fact they would have actually been worse off. A lot of small events had to happen.

 

So let's go with the method that's got us zero finals appearances in a quarter-century?

 

So it was Olshey who persuaded David Stern to veto the Lakers trade? Impressive!

 

How many times has Philly's scorched earth model worked? Ever? Once in OKC?

Didn't we try this in those seasons between 04-07? How'd that work out for us?

 

You know what other method works? Being a big market/low tax city and luring big-name free agents. How's that worked out for us?

 

Lost in all this is that, although Curry was picked lower than he should've been, he was a still a highish lottery pick. Klay Thompson was also a lottery pick. Both were great picks, but they also depended on literal dumb luck - the luck that GMs picking before them were dumb. So it's all about great drafting. I think Presti's picks of Westbrook and Harden are arguably better just because he took them HIGHER than they were expected to go. You have to have faith in yourself and not be saying "well, I really like X but DraftExpress will laugh at me because they've got him ranked ten places lower." I bet there were a lot of people in front offices who would've picked Draymond Green way higher, but were drowned out by "conventional wisdom".

 

We've already completely fucked up on one of those....

 

Including GS. They took Ezeli and Barnes with earlier picks in that draft