Insider Q&A Session With Scott O'Neil (Notes Inside)
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 11:04 pm
***UPDATE***
Okay it was Scott not Hinkie, my bad. But lots of juicy insights inside from the season ticket holder event tonight.
(There were a lot of stupid questions that he obviously couldn’t answer on roster direction so I’m not taking notes of that).
1) The thing he’s most proud of this season is that opposing teams have constantly said that, for a team that’s supposed to tank, the Sixers have been the “hardest working opponent” they’ve faced. That’s the type of culture they want to build and why they installed the nutrition/conditioning programs.
2) Won’t say whether it will be a guard or center oriented offense, but he did say they’re looking for “grit and toughness” in their team identity. Implied that they wanted a nasty team.
3) Says the Harden situation will never happen to Philadelphia. Pointed to how the team was willing to amnesty Brand to sign Bynum. Team is willing to spend when the time is right.
4) Nerlens shoots with coach Brown 1 on 1 every day. They’re still doing 1 handed free throw shots but next month it moves to 2 handed shots. His agent, his medical staff, and the team knows specific benchmarks of performance (ie: vertical leap) that he has to reach before he’s allowed to be on the floor. It’s very transparent but he lost an inch off his leg in mass, so it’s unlikely he gets on the floor this year. He kept saying Noel’s targets for return are “incredibly aggressive.”
5) Hinkie would still draft Noel over MCW today despite what he knows now. This is an example of how Hinkie thinks as an analytics person, looking at probabilities and outcomes of player careers and impact on the floor (the way it came out was super praise for Noel, don’t interpret it as hating on MCW).
6) He told a story about how Hinkie went through 300 hours of advanced stats with lineup matchups with JVG in Houston but JVG played a different crunchtime lineup. Hinkie was like “what the ****” afterward but JVG said “this player was pouting so if I didn’t play him I knew he wouldn’t have a good road trip.” That example shows how Hinkie balances advanced stats and knows the importance of having a coach with those personnel insights to balance him. That was an important criteria when selecting a coach.
7) Apparently they did background research on 25 candidates for coaches (this may not be the literal number but the way it came out it kind of "slipped" so I feel like this is accurate). This process allows them to get a lot of insight about players from those candidates even if they didn’t end up becoming the coach.
8) He doesn’t know about future trades, but he knows that Hinkie LOVESSSSS to “deal.” So he said there will probably be a lot of activity going into the deadline. He expects it.
9) Players are FULLY aware that if we finish the season below the cap, they will get paid that extra amount
10) Practice facility is still on route for 2015 finish. Money is there, but with large cities there’s always beaurocratic stuff that needs to be worked out.
11) Says he doesn’t want to be a “middle of the pack” team. There’s more detail into this that he told us, but he made us promise not to share it online.
12) He said that my point about the Phoenix Suns medical staff spending and techniques was a really good point in relation to how much the team already spends on payroll each year and how many injuries have occurred the last 2 years in the NBA. Says they’re currently looking to Europe for some experimental therapies.
13) FROM WHAT I GATHERED: Kind of obvious but it’s nice to have confirmation…he heavily, heavily implied that the only 2 people on the team who are “core” are Noel/MCW.
14) There was almost a verbal fight that broke out about tanking during Q&A hahaha. One guy really went overboard and said “let’s lose every game” where XXX responded with “no one is trying to lose or miss free throws intentionally.” Duh, but there were so many stupid questions asked.
15) He generally agreed with my assessment that the future of the NBA will be geared toward minimum and maximum contracts (LeBron can only be paid $18 million, worse contracts are the $9 million ones). I really tried to push the importance of increased scouting spend hahaha, hopefully I made my point.
Okay it was Scott not Hinkie, my bad. But lots of juicy insights inside from the season ticket holder event tonight.
(There were a lot of stupid questions that he obviously couldn’t answer on roster direction so I’m not taking notes of that).
1) The thing he’s most proud of this season is that opposing teams have constantly said that, for a team that’s supposed to tank, the Sixers have been the “hardest working opponent” they’ve faced. That’s the type of culture they want to build and why they installed the nutrition/conditioning programs.
2) Won’t say whether it will be a guard or center oriented offense, but he did say they’re looking for “grit and toughness” in their team identity. Implied that they wanted a nasty team.
3) Says the Harden situation will never happen to Philadelphia. Pointed to how the team was willing to amnesty Brand to sign Bynum. Team is willing to spend when the time is right.
4) Nerlens shoots with coach Brown 1 on 1 every day. They’re still doing 1 handed free throw shots but next month it moves to 2 handed shots. His agent, his medical staff, and the team knows specific benchmarks of performance (ie: vertical leap) that he has to reach before he’s allowed to be on the floor. It’s very transparent but he lost an inch off his leg in mass, so it’s unlikely he gets on the floor this year. He kept saying Noel’s targets for return are “incredibly aggressive.”
5) Hinkie would still draft Noel over MCW today despite what he knows now. This is an example of how Hinkie thinks as an analytics person, looking at probabilities and outcomes of player careers and impact on the floor (the way it came out was super praise for Noel, don’t interpret it as hating on MCW).
6) He told a story about how Hinkie went through 300 hours of advanced stats with lineup matchups with JVG in Houston but JVG played a different crunchtime lineup. Hinkie was like “what the ****” afterward but JVG said “this player was pouting so if I didn’t play him I knew he wouldn’t have a good road trip.” That example shows how Hinkie balances advanced stats and knows the importance of having a coach with those personnel insights to balance him. That was an important criteria when selecting a coach.
7) Apparently they did background research on 25 candidates for coaches (this may not be the literal number but the way it came out it kind of "slipped" so I feel like this is accurate). This process allows them to get a lot of insight about players from those candidates even if they didn’t end up becoming the coach.
8) He doesn’t know about future trades, but he knows that Hinkie LOVESSSSS to “deal.” So he said there will probably be a lot of activity going into the deadline. He expects it.
9) Players are FULLY aware that if we finish the season below the cap, they will get paid that extra amount
10) Practice facility is still on route for 2015 finish. Money is there, but with large cities there’s always beaurocratic stuff that needs to be worked out.
11) Says he doesn’t want to be a “middle of the pack” team. There’s more detail into this that he told us, but he made us promise not to share it online.
12) He said that my point about the Phoenix Suns medical staff spending and techniques was a really good point in relation to how much the team already spends on payroll each year and how many injuries have occurred the last 2 years in the NBA. Says they’re currently looking to Europe for some experimental therapies.
13) FROM WHAT I GATHERED: Kind of obvious but it’s nice to have confirmation…he heavily, heavily implied that the only 2 people on the team who are “core” are Noel/MCW.
14) There was almost a verbal fight that broke out about tanking during Q&A hahaha. One guy really went overboard and said “let’s lose every game” where XXX responded with “no one is trying to lose or miss free throws intentionally.” Duh, but there were so many stupid questions asked.
15) He generally agreed with my assessment that the future of the NBA will be geared toward minimum and maximum contracts (LeBron can only be paid $18 million, worse contracts are the $9 million ones). I really tried to push the importance of increased scouting spend hahaha, hopefully I made my point.