Can We call the “The Process” a Failure Yet?
If you’re an NBA nerd like me, you know Sam Hinkie well. He was the Philadelphia 76er’s General Manager from 2013 to 2016, known for his rebuilding plan monikered “The Process.” His strategy was simple:
- Build a team with the full intention to bottom out and finish with the worst record in the league.
- Enter the lottery with the best odds.
- Draft the most talented player on the board.
- Rinse and repeat until you have a young talented core
- Inevitably win the NBA championship or move out of Pennsylvania immediately.
This was an appealing plan to most basketball big-heads for a while; Hinkie even received three ‘Executive of the Year’ votes this past season, in which the 76er’s finished 10–72. Though the record is appalling, Hinkie’s praise is mostly collected in June, when his tanking strategy reaps its rewards. This year, the 72 losses landed the 76ers Ben Simmons, another top talent, who now joins Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor Joel Embiid and (sometimes) Nik Stauskas as the only players on the team I can name off the top of my head. Hinkie had yet another top ten pick to stockpile, develop, and mold into what would become the future of the 76ers. This would have (and should have) been the case were it not for the flawed nature of “The Process.”
What this plan didn’t seem to account for was the very uncertainty of being awful in the NBA. Not only did the purposely terrible 76ers have to outperform other bad teams at underperforming, but they had to deal with the league’s uncertain lottery system. Philadelphia’s luck was at its lowest in the 2014 draft, when Cleveland, a team that won 14 more games than Philly, was awarded the first overall pick. That pick became Andrew Wiggins, who eventually became Kevin Love, and the rest is history. God’s rare gift to Cleveland pushed the 76ers down to the third overall pick, where they missed out on ideal wing players in Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins to complement Nerlens Noel. As consolation, Hinkie decided to collect another defensive-minded center in Joel Embiid. Though this situation wasn’t ideal, it was still workable; “The Process” still seemed logical. Instead of a Kobe-Shaq situation, the City of Brotherly Love was going to be home to two of the best defensive centers in the NBA after Embiid and Noel developed. The twin tower framework that worked so well three years prior in LA was about to repeat itself in Philly.
Then, injury struck. Embiid needed surgery for his Navicular Stress Fracture soon after his big draft day and was sidelined for the entire season. A year removed from the mishap, Philadelphia had another high chance to win the lottery, along with a bundle of unanswered questions. What if Embiid never got healthy? Was his impressive twitter game enough to warrant a multi-year commitment? Did the 76ers really have the big-men of their future? Or should they roll the dice on a talented Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor given their inevitable high pick? In the face of these questions, most projected the Sixers to select D’angelo Russell, a dynamic passer with a quick 3-pt shot: the seemingly perfect compliment to their front court forest.
On June 25, 2015, though, these questions were abruptly answered when the infamous lottery struck again. The 76ers dropped to the third overall selection for the second year in a row, and film major D’angelo Russell was snatched by the Lakers with the second overall pick. When Philadelphia’s name was called, Jahlil Okafor remained on the board, a player that many pundits felt was a once in a lifetime post-threat offensively. Valuing talent over team spacing, Hinkie went on to make grumpy Jahlil Okafor a 76er.
To me, this was the professional equivalent of hitting autopick on your fantasy football draft. Sure, everyone considers Jamaal Charles the best player available, but having him, Adrian Peterson, Le’Veon Bell, and Eddie Lacy is simply not what you’re supposed to do. Instead, a good GM should evaluate what positional need is most dire for his team, and make the best decision to accrue talent in that area, ignoring the inevitable criticism. This is what Hinkie ultimately failed to do. He really should have traded down and/or rolled the dice on a lower top ten pick and a veteran roleplayer. The 2015 draft was deep enough for flexibility, and Okafor was talented enough to demand a tantalizing bounty. Even if Philly couldn’t find any suitors willing to give up the proper value for Okafor, drafting a sharpshooting unicorn in PorzinGod, prospective 3 & D players in Stanley Johnson or Justice Winslow, or a long range threat in Mario Herzonja would have fit the 76ers’ bill much better. They would have been able to roll out all 3 of their great young players this past year (if they turned out to be healthy) at the same time, and expedited the arduous development period.
But that’s not what the “The Process” calls for. Instead, it demands the best assets, who will become useful regardless of position from trade value. Unfortunately, Sam Hinkie clearly didn’t pay attention to diminishing returns while getting his MBA from Stanford. By the end of the 2015–2016 season, Philly was the worst team in the NBA once again, Joel Embiid was still suffering from the injury bug, Jahlil Okafor hated playing for the team, and Nerlens Noel wasn’t fitting within a congested front court. But Hinkie’s adamant followers still seemed to trust him. He had a reason for this part of his plan. He was too smart not to. Eventually, he’d land a generational talent in Ben Simmons, pull the loose ends together, and see his idea come to fruition. This is what geniuses like him were supposed to do. Rome wasn’t built in a day, amirite?
Perhaps passionate Hinkie disciples will claim he had this aforementioned plan, but we will never know. Shortly after a 76ers board meeting this April, Sam Hinkie released a 13 page resignation statement and Bryan Colangelo, the 2005 and 2007 Executive of the Year, was brought in to bring the 76ers back to relevance. “The Process,” with Hinkie at the helm, was finally over, leaving many with one longing question: Did it actually work?
Despite the esteem he seems to herald, Hinkie didn’t really do anything for the 76ers except build a bad team in order to draft talent. Many people seem to ignore that the roster he compiled lacks a compatible core. Philadelphia has great young players, but they’re all big men. Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor are all best at the center position. Even 6–10 Ben Simmons — arguably the most exciting and unique talent of them all — makes the most sense playing PF in the modern NBA given his poor shooting ability. Hell, I haven’t even mentioned Dario Saric, the 22 year old 6–10 PF/SF Croatian prospect who recently signed with the Sixers. This means that either the 76ers clog the court, playing one of their true centers at PF while having Ben Simmons play as their point-small forward, or, alternatively, seriously risk stunting the development of their talent.
Colangelo, the heir of the all-mighty Hinkie Plan, is thus left in a very sticky situation. Sure, the 76ers roster is as talented as it could be because of Hinkie’s decisions, but Philadelphia’s young core is not the core of their future. By stubbornly drafting what were the consensus most-talented players off of the draft board, Sam Hinkie muddied what was supposed to be his future super team with incoherent choices and ill-fitting pieces.
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The front court backlog in Philly means that Colangelo’s first order of business will be to flip one of his talented young big men for a young wing or point guard to develop alongside the remaining core. The problem is, Colangelo is a seller in a buyer’s market. Everybody knows that the 76ers have to trade one of their centers, forcing Philadelphia into a situation with almost no leverage. Therefore, these top young talents are not being treated as such. Opposing GMs are devaluing the 76ers’ trade assets because they know that in order for Philadelphia to succeed, one of them has to go.
Exasperating this situation is that in the 76ers’ prospects need to play big minutes against NBA competition to properly develop and attain maximum trade value. Since a lineup of Jerryd Bayless (the savvy vet of the organization at this point), Simmons, Okafor, Noel and Embiid is impossible to roll out in today’s NBA, this is hard for the 76ers to do. Philly can’t play lineups that give NBA scouts a realistic look at these players’ skill sets without reducing their minutes. This is a Catch-22 that no one wants, and one which no one expected “The Process” to leave the Sixers organization in.
Even worse for Colangelo is that there is a timer he needs to keep in mind. At the end of this year, Nerlens Noel is a restricted free agent, meaning that the 76ers either have to commit to him long term, or let him go to the team that will inevitably offer him something close to a max contract for 5 years. If Colangelo does not make a move by then, one of two unappealing situations will play out.
Option 1: The 76ers can sign Nerlens Noel, a supreme defensive talent for the long term, and consequently devalue Embiid and Okafor, as opposing GMs will know that there is only enough room for one of them.
Option 2: The 76ers let Nerlens Noel walk for nothing in order to open up rotation time for Embiid and Okafor at their preferred center position. This is an especially risky move, as Okafor is known to be an average defender at best, meaning Embiid, yet to play a minute in the NBA, will be forced to be an NBA-ready defensive prospect.
If a trade isn’t completed by the time Nerlens’ restricted free agency begins, the 76ers are guaranteed to lose one of their players for an unfair price, whether it be through expired contracts, or opposing GMs logically devaluing players like Okafor and Embiid.
Traditionally, free agency could be seen as another solution. Philadelphia has a TON of cap space, with $25 million in room before they even think about going up into the luxury tax. No one on the 76ers has a salary of over $10 million a year. The only players on the books for the 2017–18 season making more than $5 million a year are Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Gerald Henderson on an expiring contract. There is an INCREDIBLE amount of room for growth in Philadelphia, as Hinkie did do a good job of making sure there were no bad contracts on the team before he resigned.
Of course, this is great news for Colangelo. A clean slate with dynamic young players is every GM’s dream. But attracting top players to Philadelphia may be harder than some think. The rising cap has allowed already great teams to have the room to sign additional all-time talent (See Durant, Kevin) and the cap is due to go up again next year, when the free agency class is even better. As recent history has shown: winning > money for the top free agents in the NBA. So why would they go to Philadelphia? Boston will offer the world in assets to pull off a sign and trade to get that next piece to fit next to Al Horford, LA is LA, and a frenzy of other teams with cap space are really just a star away from being championship contenders (P.S. I’m a Pistons fan not so-subtly talking about Detroit, @BlakeGrffin/@PaulMillsap/@SergeIbaka). Philadelphia seems ions away from a deep playoff run to any NBA player right now. Convincing a star in their prime to come to Philly to be a mentor for its young stars thus seems like a long shot to me, and I wouldn’t bank on Philadelphia being able to pull a coup like Russell Westbrook off.
Therefore, the only realistic option for Philadelphia to improve before this summer forces them to give up on one of their young bigs is a trade. Unfortunately, the way “The Process” left the 76ers makes this situation an unflattering one for the same reason I mentioned above. No one wants to offer much to trade for a player they know they can get for free if they just wait a season.
This leaves Colangelo in a situation where he needs to flip one of his excess centers for talent fast. It’s not that simple, though, considering that he has to pick the right pieces to keep, get a solid return on the one(s) he decides to trade out of Philly, and do all of this before the summer of Nerlens’ free agency. In order to maximize the Sixers’ long term potential, everything needs to work itself out in the coming year, and ideally in the coming months so that the assets Colangelo chooses to keep and acquire have more time to build on court chemistry with each other.
This year, it is not enough for Philadelphia to just be the showcase for fringe NBA starters to inflate their numbers (thanks for Ish Smith, though). Outright tanking is not the answer, as pieces need to be moved and acquired for what should become the core players of the future 76ers. The rotation needs to be opened up for the high ceiling centers that call Philly home for their development to continue, or, in the case of Embiid, begin, and their potential to be reached.
At the end of the day, “The Process” Hinkie made famous was intended to make rebuilding as easy as possible for the 76ers. They would get once in a lifetime young talent year after year to build a team on cheap contracts that would naturally develop into contenders. But the flaws of the plan are now making themselves apparent. Just getting talented players in the draft clearly wasn’t enough. Smart-drafting, focused team development, and utilizing roster space is paramount for any team, regardless of how talented the players you draft are. This is the situation Colangelo has taken over. Hinkie’s rebuild has simply transitioned into an opportunity to rebuild some more. Colangelo’s Plan will be one with better pieces to start with, but it’ll have to be a rebuild process nonetheless. Though the words may haunt the city of Philadelphia once again, I guess the best course of action is just to trust this process…
