And I still could not disagree more. On Hinkie it is done, whether 'the process' cult still has believers or adherents remains relevant but clearly no one is going to try exactly what he did b/c its suicide. He got fired and to this point is a pariah.
And that's why I also don't buy in. How is this different from a company selling at a massive loss to gain market share and then declaring them a winner even before they've made a profit from the market share? You cannot discount the loss of $, reputation etc, THEN they have to succeed (WIN) before declaring success and its still 50-50 to occur. In that situation its not worth it if the profits don't outweigh the losses by math - here its more subjective, but I'd still apply the math of wins-losses, track attendance & create some measurable playoff barometer.
I maintain that 5 years of losing isn't worth it UNTIL you win and even then its a Faustian bargain.
A. Very difficult to redirect to a winning culture (Jury absolutely still out, + cleaning house of coaches/GM seems necessary)
B. Have to be LUCKY in the draft and draft exceedingly well and this is still inexact science. Simply put you are sacrificing seasons & committing all resources to a process that by its very definition is massively uncertain (lottery balls and pick success)
C. They've inexplicably frocked themselves with the injured player drafting compounding the risks. Noel has already yielded next-to-nothing and Embid return paltry to this point. Going forward it pretty much all hinges on Embid (title contention wise) and to assume its a success cuz he looked phenomenal in 31 games but then got hurt again is ignoring RESULTS for intangible non-facts.
He was fired incorrectly. Ownership said they'd follow through, then didn't. It was cowardly and dumb. If the Sixers win a title within 5 years, he'll be vindicated and someone will do it again if system is not changed.
Feel free to create a metric to measure how bad they were to compare to how good they are in the future, but remember they were going to be bad either way during this timeframe, so you need to look at how much marginally worse they were. The goal from ownership was winning a championship, so the ideal metric is championship equity gained. How much more likely are they to win a championship at this point of the rebuild then if they didn't make the moves he made compared to how much marginally worse they were. The reason people call it a success already is because it seems any other method would not have yielded as much equity.
A. This is overblown. The Thunder lost a bajillion games with Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka the first few years, then doubled their win total to 50 games the next season. I' d wager the 76ers are probably a year or so away from that turnaround, depending on Simmons. The accumulation of talent following the next 2 drafts will be considerable.
B. Yes, you have to be lucky in the draft, but it's still the best way to get a superstar, especially with the new CBA and the new veteran player exception. One of Hinkie's main tenets is that because it's luck-based, you need as many whacks at the golden goose as possible. That's why you accumulate as many draft picks as possible. That's why he flipped MCW (rookie of the year, but they saw he wasn't elite and not on the right timeline) for a high value draft pick that could convey at #4 overall this year.
C. I have no problem with the risks. They were calculated. In both instances, they took the consensus top player in the draft at the #3 and #6 slot. You don't get a lot of superstars at #6, so it makes total sense to swing there. The Saric pick was also perfect, as it allowed them to be worse short-term and was big value outside top 10. I'm not sure why you're even measuring Embiid's past return. Buddy Hield went #3 last year and is rated as one of the worst players in the league, but still just got traded for Demarcus Cousins. It makes no sense to measure current return for first few year players.
D. Nothing is guaranteed, but it does not all hinge on Embiid. It hinges on Embiid, and Saric, and Simmons (remember him?), and the top 3 pick (possibly 2 top 5) they have this year and the presumably top 5 pick from the Kings in 2019. They have essentially 6 more chances for 1 of those guys to be a legit superstar, but they've got enough talent now that the snowball is rolling and they'll win more games the next few years.
