http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf Long read but has some interesting parts "A contrarian mindset This one is tricky, and getting more so in a league as healthy and popular as the NBA that is covered by beat writers, columnists, bloggers, commentators, and fans minute-to-minute. If you want to have real success you have to very often be willing to do something different from the herd. A few examples might help. Step away from basketball and imagine for a moment this is investment management, and your job is to take your client’s money and make it grow. It’s January 1, 2015 and the S&P 500 is $171.60, exactly the same price it has been since January 1, 1985. No fluctuation up or down. Flat every single day. And your job for every day of the past 30 years is to make money for your clients by investing. What would you do? In the NBA, that’s wins. The same 82 games are up for grabs every year for every team. Just like in 1985 (or before). To get more wins, you’re going to have to take them from someone else. Wins are a zero- growth industry (how many of you regularly choose to invest in those?), and the only way up is to steal share from your competitors. You will have to do something different. You will have to be contrarian. Howard Marks describes this as a necessary condition of great performance: you have to be non- consensus and right. Both. That means you have to find some way to have a differentiated viewpoint from the masses. And it needs to be right. Anything less won’t work. But this is difficult, emotionally and intellectually. Seth Klarman talks about the comfort of consensus. It’s much more comfortable to have people generally agreeing with you. By definition, those opportunities in a constrained environment winnow away with each person that agrees with you, though."
Who the fuck writes a 13 page resignation letter? Dude, you were GM of a team that was shit when you took the job and is even shittier now, get over yourself.
I just thought it came off as highly pretentious. He was popping linguistic wheelies just to show off. Thinks he's Umberto Eco or something.
Hinkie is the type of guy that would paint a couple lines and circles on a blank canvas and call himself an "artist"
Yes, solid footing. And I love the last part, "The NBA can be a league of desperation, those that are in it and those that can avoid it. So many find themselves caught in the zugzwang, the point in the game where all possible moves make you worse off. Your positioning is now the opposite of that." He is correct, there is no possible move that could make that team any worse. Congrats, I guess.
Good point brought up on a podcast I never considered; was this the outcome ownership planned for all along? Hinkie acquired all the assets during a 3 year super tank; he became the villian, now they brought in a proven big name leader and new positively to spend those assets and build a team. Hinkie can be the fall guy, but everything is proceeding along as ownership always intended. They have a collection of assets that could make their team a powerhouse in 5 years. Compared to the Nets, Lakers, or Kings this 6ers franchise is in a wonderful position long term. Could make a case for them over another dozen teams in "NBA purgatory" as well.
My problem with him and his strategy is that in the process he seems to have wasted assets. Picked MCW. Didn't like him and got rid of him. Picked Embiid, and he seems a waste so far. In fact, picked 3 limited big men that can't all play together. He let God players go for pretty much nothing, like evan turner who was a number 2 pick. Even the low ranking players he has let go are doing better elsewhere. Rather than a plan, it just seems like a revolving door of suck.
Yeah; I think they're just trying to get a potential star. Embiid was in a two player draft, he was the only one with clear star potential. Trading MCW for the Lakers pick is a damn good move. They've certainly made a number of bad choices but that can said for even well run teams. If they get the #1 and #4 pick in the lottery this year the Collangelo's will look like genius' even though they didn't do anything to get the team in that spot. I wouldn't run my team as Hinkie did if I owned it, but who knows what all these assets will look like in 7 years from now. I actually have a lot more respect for what they did than what the Nets or Kings have done the last half dozen years. I might add the Pelicans too that list of the worst managed teams too. They lucked out getting the #1 pick with Anthony Davis and have done about as bad a job as possible since. The Cavs somehow got three #1 overall picks in four drafts; and the best player in the world to agree to go there. That's so ridiculous on multiple levels as well.
Wait, did the guy seriously cite espn future power rankings? It's like a guy on a message board writing some of that. What a jack ass. I think what bugs me the most, or annoys me the most with philly and all the talk around it, people like to paint an all or nothing. I've seen philly fans and others say how they were a treadmill team going nowhere, so this was best. But that only works with hindsight. They dismantled a team with jrue, Evan turner, Spencer hawes, thaddeus young and a few other solid players all around 25ish. Hindsight shows what happened to some of those guys, but there's no way to say how they would have developed in different situations. Acting like a young team cant improve is the same stuff we see here often with people saying how a 6-8 seed is"purgatory", without any acknowledgement of upward trajectory.
If all goes right for Colangelo, next year he will be adding: A healthy Embiid Dario Saric Ben Simmons and be able to take credit for the improved team!
Could also have the Lakers #4 pick, multiple other first round picks, and they have $60 million in salary cap room. Such low expectations if that team is anywhere near .500 he'll be considered a wizard. It's a great opportunity for a GM.
The new guy as a GM never have won no championship. Yes won couple executive year award but really how far does that get you. This league is base many championship not how many award you get. So until they find the right chemistry in Philly they will continue to lose. They have some really good talent over there but so far they don't have anyone to make them complete.
Dude. Was this guy espousing a Benjamin Graham-type investing theory or running a pro basketball team? I don't think even he knows.
It comes across as though he's just really full of himself comparing what he did to dozens of the brightest minds in history. If he instead had a letter highlighting everything he did wrong and let what he did right speak for itself he'd have been much better served.
Wonder if the struggles of Hinkie's teacher and mentor in Houston may have contributed to the owners faith in him? Analytic based guys were an advantage when none of the league was paying attention. Now it's irrelevant; every club has a group of them on staff.
