Eyeamok wrote:As a 76ers fan I come in peace. Just wanted to say I love the creativity on this thread.
Would the vast majority of the fans be down for a rebuild the way Hinkie has done it/is doing it in Philly?
It has been painful and hard. But if Jerry C and Pringles don't get in the way of this upcoming draft. I think we could be heading in the right direction finally.
I really enjoyed what I saw of Booker, he is a keeper. What would you say is/has been the main problem with the franchise?
The real problem: It was run into the ground by Lance Blanks, a guy from the Spurs (and people should keep that in mind because so many are on board with any Spurs coach becoming our new HC), and Lon Babby. 3 years ago we had a team of aging nobodies and role players, plus the Laker picks, 1 of which was a late first, the other which is protected, and 2 2nd rounders. The reason for that was that we had missed on countless draft picks and gave deals to guys like Michael Beasley and Josh Childress. Markieff Morris was that regime's best pick, and we dealt with the usual issues of having a team of aging players. The cupboard was literally bear, and a full out rebuild was needed. The owner, Robert Sarver, is also at fault since these were his guys and he also hampered the organization with the reputation of being cheap in the past. He really hasn't been over the past decade at all, but it's hard to live down the initial impressions, and he'll always be known for selling first rounders during a title run.
In the 3 years since, we've drafted quite well, and traded quite well. Many will blame McDonough for this season, but he is the only positive from the non-players that I see. He's been everything that is right quite frankly if your goal is to rebuild instead of making the playoffs. Many here are oddly upset at him for losing while claiming they always advocated a full tanking rebuild. His player combinations have not worked well, but our coach also puts them in the worst positions to succeed with their rotations imo. We have young talent, fixed the PF problem (seriously, Tele and Leuer have been fine and shooting the 3 VERY well), and simply should be better this year. The talent level is not the problem even though we still need that 1st guy, but only 5 or 6 teams in basketball have those guys.
We went from Dudley, Gortat, Scola, Michael Beasley, Josh Childress, and the Morris twins, plus a protected first from the Lakers to what we have now in Bledsoe, Booker, Len, Warren, Bogdan, Knight, and Goodwin. From a rebuilding perspective, that is a huge win in terms of acquiring young talent for old guys with middling value at best. We got Bledsoe for Dudley and a 2nd. We drafted Len, Warren, and Booker. We re-signed the Morri at the time to what was seen as bargain contracts. We got 2 largely unprotected firsts for Dragic, which will pay dividends in a few years, another first for Thomas, a guy we signed to a bargain deal. We also have Bogdan coming over next year. Even Leuer, 26, you could add to the list of positives and he was grabbed for a 2nd rounder.
We did have a couple arguable losses in this GM/FO arena:
1. Signing Tyson Chandler to get Aldridge, who we lost out on. This could be a positive if we can move him for something of value, so it is still TBD. If we end up having to keep him for 4 years or giving up something to get rid of him, this is a big loss from a rebuilding perspective. If we move him for a first, it's a win. If we move him for an expiring, it's neither. We don't need older guys if we couldn't get Aldridge because we aren't contenders without him. Tyson was supposed to bring stability, leadership, and teach the youngsters how to play defense. He's done none of that imo.
2. Trading the Laker pick and Tyler Ennis (leaving Plumlee out because you can't simultaneously criticize or praise somebody for acquiring and then moving a player) for Brandon Knight. The laker pick is top 3 protected this year, so they will likely keep it. Even if they transmit it, it may yield a worse player than Knight, who is better than many of the 4th overall picks in recent history. It is still TBD imo, but many here will tell you it's a loss. Knight is a frustrating player to watch, because he does take a lot of off balance shots and his defense is bad, but he also hits a lot of those shots and shoots quite well. This depends on what the Laker Pick and Knight end up turning into, and whether Knight can ever become a defender, which is the thing keeping his advanced stats down.
A lot of the problems haven't been things that were controllable by anybody in the organization. The Morris twins took their new contract as a belief that they could do whatever the hell they wanted with no consequence. They chewed out the fans telling them they suck, the head coach on national tv, and then "allegedly" beat the hell out of someone at a community center and rolled out in their Phantom, resulting in felony assault charges which are still ongoing. All the while getting more technicals combined than many teams had, which cost us key games down the stretch in a year we should have made the playoffs. Accordingly, we traded one of the brothers, since they clearly couldn't function together. They, as the immature morons they are, took that as a personal affront in which they were somehow wronged and has lead to the Markieff cloud that has hung over the organization. None of it was really foreseeable imo. It was obvious Markieff would be upset, but not that he would respond how he has, putting up a career worst year and throwing stuff at the coach, while arguing with fans on social media and demanding trades.
Another expected leader, PJ Tucker, decided to go out and drink until he was like 23% BAC and get a new kind of DUI nobody has ever heard of.
I think Hornacek lost this team last season, when we technicalled ourselves out of contention. Tucker, Bledsoe, and the 2 Morri were the main culprits. Hornacek tried a few things, but ultimately was unable to solve that problem. I feel bad for him to an extent because these guys, particularly the Morri, are far from easy to deal with. That said, I've never seen such an out of control team ever, and there are teams that I think have as many or more knuckleheads out there (like Sac), and you have guys like Van Gundy claiming Marcus is easy to coach, so maybe it is all on Hornacek. Leadership overall, from coaches to players, was just awful and has been now for 2 years.
This season, our rotations are nonsense and our best young players don't see consistent time despite putting up better numbers than the vets. We have, despite what many say on here, an offense that performs well. It should be much better, but it would be good enough to make the playoffs if we weren't dead last in defense and near there in turnovers. The young talent continues to develop individual skills, but the team aspects like execution, defense, etc. all continue to show no improvement despite already having an incredibly low bar.