The Philadelphia 76ers have approached rebuilding in an interesting way, to say the least. General manager Sam Hinkie has become notoriously famous across the NBA for his method of building the team. For the past few years, the Sixers have scrapped the team down to marginal NBA talent while accumulating endless draft picks, hoping to find a gem in a process often dictated by pure luck. While that has made the team a sort of joke throughout the league, it has always been thought that within the organization itself, “Trust the Process” was a real motto and not just a technique to brainwash loyal fans.
That may not be entirely true however. At last season’s February trade deadline, Hinkie made a surprising move by trading Michael Carter-Williams to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team move that netted the Sixers a first round pick owed by the Lakers, one that is top-three protected this season. The move was a divisive one with many claiming that the Sixers were smart to sell high on Carter-Williams while he rode a strong rookie year and others maintaining that the former rookie-of-the-year was a future building block for the team.
Consider 76ers coach Brett Brown and team president Scott O’Neil as members of the latter category. According to Brian Geltzeiler of Sports Illustrated, both Brown and O’Neil were angered by Hinkie’s decision to move the team backwards by trading away one of its better players:
According to multiple league sources, last season’s decision to trade point guard Michael Carter-Williams?—?Hinkie’s first draft pick with the franchise in 2013, and a second-year player coming off winning the league’s Rookie of the Year award?—?was Hinkie’s alone, and the move angered both head coach Brett Brown and CEO Scott O’Neil, who were caught unaware. Although Brown previously had some dustups with Carter-Williams, he had no desire to take a competitive step backward and give up one of the team’s better players for a (potentially valuable) future first-round pick. O’Neil was miffed because he was planning to market the team around Carter-Williams and 2014 lottery pick Nerlens Noel.
This was bound to happen, eventually. Hinkie’s insistence on treating the entire team-building process as a lottery and hoping to score big through increasing the odds, always had the potential of rubbing people the wrong way. For the Sixers organization, it means suffering through years of little revenue with the team not competitive enough to gain loyal supporters. For Brown – by all accounts a smart and talented coach – it means continuing to lose games due to a lack of talent on the roster, numbers that will appear on his resume without the proper context. This was all a matter of speculation for years, but that Brown reportedly is frustrated clearly shows the flaws in the Sixers’ game plan. Whether this will lead to changes (either in personnel or in methodology) will remain to be seen.
