Hinkie's letter to Sixers shareholders

[King of Canada]

I didn't read it, but did it just say "You're Welcome"?

[The Rebel]

http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf

Interesting read. What concerns me about his own analysis, beside the transparent false modesty and putative self-criticism, is that he doesn't appear to understand that basketball is a business that is subject to the human condition and that you cannot discount the impact that a record level of losing has on players to zero. It's odd that he recognizes how subconscious and emotional factors can skew decision making at the management level, but simultaneously fails to grasp how players (who are assets in his detached analysis) are susceptible to the same type influences. A top five pick isn't an AAA bond on a balance sheet. Losing 87% of your games your first couple of years can negatively impact development. Branding and culture, additional human considerations, also cannot be discounted to zero. If your organization is perceived as a hot mess, then attracting talent, developing good habits, and avoiding morale problems becomes difficult. Dysfunction can beget dysfunction.

I also found it odd that he understood that basketball was a zero sum game where you can only win at the expense of one your competitors, and yet, he gave away how many wins to acquire his assets? It seems that he overpaid for his own team's lottery picks in that regard. In the last thirty years, three No. 1 picks have won championships by my count - Shaq, Duncan and LBJ. So if you have the worst record, you have a 25% of landing the No. 1 pick. If you have the No. 1 pick, you have a 10% chance of actually landing a franchise changing player (this number could go higher with Towns and AD but they're not there yet). Using Hinkie's own analysis, he paid 70 wins this year alone for a 2.5% chance at a franchise changing player. Except even that seems high because the years when Shaq and LBJ were draft eligible, they were deemed generational talents. If you're paying 70 wins in a year when Ben Simmons is the likely No. 1 pick, then you might paying those wins for a less than 1% chance. I'm not at all convinced that Hinkie, for as smart as he was said to be, was accurate in analyzing the data.

Magic Johnson #1 pick won titles in 86-87 & 87-88
Hakeem Olajuwon #1 pick won titles in 93-94 & 94-95
Mark Aguirre #1 pick won titles in 88-89 & 89-90

So by my count 17 of the past 30 NBA championships have been won with a #1 pick making a major contribution to the team. If you bump that to top 3 pick it becomes something like 24 out of 30. So yeah, drafting in the top 3 is pretty significant.

How many of those 24 were won by top three draft picks who were still on the same team that drafted them?

[Snotbubbles]

http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf

Interesting read. What concerns me about his own analysis, beside the transparent false modesty and putative self-criticism, is that he doesn't appear to understand that basketball is a business that is subject to the human condition and that you cannot discount the impact that a record level of losing has on players to zero. It's odd that he recognizes how subconscious and emotional factors can skew decision making at the management level, but simultaneously fails to grasp how players (who are assets in his detached analysis) are susceptible to the same type influences. A top five pick isn't an AAA bond on a balance sheet. Losing 87% of your games your first couple of years can negatively impact development. Branding and culture, additional human considerations, also cannot be discounted to zero. If your organization is perceived as a hot mess, then attracting talent, developing good habits, and avoiding morale problems becomes difficult. Dysfunction can beget dysfunction.

I also found it odd that he understood that basketball was a zero sum game where you can only win at the expense of one your competitors, and yet, he gave away how many wins to acquire his assets? It seems that he overpaid for his own team's lottery picks in that regard. In the last thirty years, three No. 1 picks have won championships by my count - Shaq, Duncan and LBJ. So if you have the worst record, you have a 25% of landing the No. 1 pick. If you have the No. 1 pick, you have a 10% chance of actually landing a franchise changing player (this number could go higher with Towns and AD but they're not there yet). Using Hinkie's own analysis, he paid 70 wins this year alone for a 2.5% chance at a franchise changing player. Except even that seems high because the years when Shaq and LBJ were draft eligible, they were deemed generational talents. If you're paying 70 wins in a year when Ben Simmons is the likely No. 1 pick, then you might paying those wins for a less than 1% chance. I'm not at all convinced that Hinkie, for as smart as he was said to be, was accurate in analyzing the data.

Magic Johnson #1 pick won titles in 86-87 & 87-88
Hakeem Olajuwon #1 pick won titles in 93-94 & 94-95
Mark Aguirre #1 pick won titles in 88-89 & 89-90

So by my count 17 of the past 30 NBA championships have been won with a #1 pick making a major contribution to the team. If you bump that to top 3 pick it becomes something like 24 out of 30. So yeah, drafting in the top 3 is pretty significant.

How many of those 24 were won by top three draft picks who were still on the same team that drafted them?

In the last 30 years. 22 of 30.

Duncan (#1 overall) won 5
Wade (#3 overall) won 3
Jordan (#3 overall) won 6
Hakeem (#1 overall) won 2
Isaiah (#2 overall) won 2
Magic (#1 overall) won 2
McHale (#2 overall) won 2

[Joe Buddy]

Bogut who the Warriors benched after they were down 2-1 in the Finals last year?

You didn't state that the player had to play big minutes to get on that list. He was a #1 pick and was on a championship winning team.

That's literally true but irrelevant. The Warriors didn't even draft Bogut and he isn't the type of player that Hinkie was hoping to get when he decided to pursue the 1 in 4 odds of getting the No. 1 pick by losing as many games as possible.

But out of the three guys you mentioned (Shaq, Duncan and LBJ), two of them weren't drafted by the teams they won their championships with.

[TaylorMonkey]

But by his own analysis, the currency of the NBA is wins. It seems to me that he paid a premium in current wins in order to increase his odds by a minuscule percentage at future wins. I mean if I buy one million lottery tickets for a billion dollar payoff, that's not a good investment. It doesn't matter that I reduced the odds from one in five billion to one in five thousand. The odds are still heavily stacked against me and I have $1 million at risk. It's an admittedly imperfect analogy because every team in the NBA, even the Warriors, lose a game and "pay" a win. Bad teams, who aren't trying to be bad, are going to "pay" wins whether they want to or not. But in terms of determining whether Hinkie paid more than he had to, I think it works.

I don't think this works as a good analogy at all. The "value" of wins for a team below .500 is not weighted the same as wins for a winning team. Any GM should much rather have a 10 win team one season and a 55 win team the next than two seasons of 35 wins. The "zero-sum game" idea applies within a single season across the league, but does not really hold across seasons. Effectively things "reset" every season, except the possible psychic damage that occurs as a losing culture sets in. That's the real problem.

He uses the Warriors as an example of long-term results, but neglects to mention that none of their key players was a top 5 pick.

Let's take the Warriors. Their franchise record is 2589-2884, at a .473 W-L% Their record in the last 20 or even 10 years is much worse than that. Does that devalue their historical season and possible status as greatest team of all time with 72 or 73 wins? Not at all. Because in the end, these markers of excellence in a single season (win records and championships) are what team managers should be aiming for.

Of course an ownership that is bleeding money might not appreciate such a process as much-- which is why ownership with perspective matters-- but I think most fans would much rather have their franchise be where the Warriors are now even with their past history (which actually makes the success that much sweeter) than a franchise that is perennially competitive but never actually wins it all.

As far as top 5 picks go, Curry should have at least been pick #5. Just because other franchises make terrible mistakes with their draft picks doesn't devalue the value of picks. If GSW had pick #5 (maybe even #3), they would have selected Curry anyway.

The problem with Hinke's approach isn't wins given up, except where it hurts an owner's pockets and causes his process to be prematurely interfered with. The problem with what the 76ers were doing is that there is no culture in place that develops these players and their ability to play as part of a contending team even in the midst of losing seasons. There is no culture in place that shapes these players as NBA professionals that want nothing more than to play at a high level and hate nothing more than losing. Sometimes the culture comes with the players a team drafts, like in a Steph Curry or a Draymond Green. Sometimes it can exist through vets and a strong coaching staff. But when this development doesn't happen early, often it never does, and having no real culture to gird these players who don't self motivate and self-regulate results in players like Embiid and seemingly Okafor running off the rails.

[jbk1234]

http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf

Interesting read. What concerns me about his own analysis, beside the transparent false modesty and putative self-criticism, is that he doesn't appear to understand that basketball is a business that is subject to the human condition and that you cannot discount the impact that a record level of losing has on players to zero. It's odd that he recognizes how subconscious and emotional factors can skew decision making at the management level, but simultaneously fails to grasp how players (who are assets in his detached analysis) are susceptible to the same type influences. A top five pick isn't an AAA bond on a balance sheet. Losing 87% of your games your first couple of years can negatively impact development. Branding and culture, additional human considerations, also cannot be discounted to zero. If your organization is perceived as a hot mess, then attracting talent, developing good habits, and avoiding morale problems becomes difficult. Dysfunction can beget dysfunction.

I also found it odd that he understood that basketball was a zero sum game where you can only win at the expense of one your competitors, and yet, he gave away how many wins to acquire his assets? It seems that he overpaid for his own team's lottery picks in that regard. In the last thirty years, three No. 1 picks have won championships by my count - Shaq, Duncan and LBJ. So if you have the worst record, you have a 25% of landing the No. 1 pick. If you have the No. 1 pick, you have a 10% chance of actually landing a franchise changing player (this number could go higher with Towns and AD but they're not there yet). Using Hinkie's own analysis, he paid 70 wins this year alone for a 2.5% chance at a franchise changing player. Except even that seems high because the years when Shaq and LBJ were draft eligible, they were deemed generational talents. If you're paying 70 wins in a year when Ben Simmons is the likely No. 1 pick, then you might paying those wins for a less than 1% chance. I'm not at all convinced that Hinkie, for as smart as he was said to be, was accurate in analyzing the data.

Magic Johnson #1 pick won titles in 86-87 & 87-88
Hakeem Olajuwon #1 pick won titles in 93-94 & 94-95
Mark Aguirre #1 pick won titles in 88-89 & 89-90

So by my count 17 of the past 30 NBA championships have been won with a #1 pick making a major contribution to the team. If you bump that to top 3 pick it becomes something like 24 out of 30. So yeah, drafting in the top 3 is pretty significant.

How many of those 24 were won by top three draft picks who were still on the same team that drafted them?

He's going back 40 years in the draft and applying it to the last 30 years of Championships. He's also conflating single players winning multiple Championships with the overall percentage of finding those players in any given draft. If only three have done it over the last 30 years of drafts, then 27 did not. Moreover, only two players drafted No. 1 overall in the last 15 years have won championships and Bogut did it from the bench last year.

[Chris Porter's Hair]

It's scary how few people understand what he was doing. It just goes to show you how stupid the average person is.

I'm guessing this is a swipe at Sam Hinkie, but I guess I am an idiot, haha. He did an excellent job compiling assets and remolding the team. They are in a great position now.

No just the opposite. I read this as the average person is too stupid to comprehend Hinkie's master plan, which I believe has worked out great.

I have trouble understanding how anyone can grade him anything beyond, "The jury is still out." To say his plan has "worked out great" when there is little evidence he's accomplished anything at all seems generous.

[Dominator83]

I'm a Bulls fan that doesn't care about the Sixers one way or the other. That being said, Hinkie got fired way too early. He should've at the very least gotten 1 more year to see how everything looks to pan out. Next year they have the following:

Embiid
Saric
Atleast one top 5 pick, maybe even 2 if LAL conveys
Okafor and Noel, 1 of which will likely be traded and will fetch something good in return

That's pretty damn good cupboard if you ask me. Especially if you consider that he was handed garbage when he got the job. He traded Jrue Holiday, who has proven to be overrated. He was also the first to notice that MCW putting up those Oscar Robertson #s was fools gold and sold high before he was exposed.

Now if this time next year they still suck and their prospects don't look very promising, THEN it would be appropriate to look into finding a new GM. Ownership then the plan when he was hired, then get him canned before we see the end results.

[jbk1234]

You didn't state that the player had to play big minutes to get on that list. He was a #1 pick and was on a championship winning team.

That's literally true but irrelevant. The Warriors didn't even draft Bogut and he isn't the type of player that Hinkie was hoping to get when he decided to pursue the 1 in 4 odds of getting the No. 1 pick by losing as many games as possible.

But out of the three guys you mentioned (Shaq, Duncan and LBJ), two of them weren't drafted by the teams they won their championships with.

Which is true and only further calls into question the wisdom of tanking full on for the No. 1 pick. A true franchise changer might come out once a decade (and unlike players drafted in the 80/90s you only have one year of college to make that determination). But the window for the team that drafts that player is realistically between 7-8 years. So you have to go from being the worst team in the league to actually winning the Championship in order to be guaranteed to hold onto that player in that time span.

[azwfan]

It's scary how few people understand what he was doing. It just goes to show you how stupid the average person is.

I'm guessing this is a swipe at Sam Hinkie, but I guess I am an idiot, haha. He did an excellent job compiling assets and remolding the team. They are in a great position now.

No just the opposite. I read this as the average person is too stupid to comprehend Hinkie's master plan, which I believe has worked out great.

It hasn't worked out great... unless his master plan was to compile a bunch of assets and then get canned. He was able to get the assets, he wasn't able to keep his job. I can't believe getting fired was part of his master plan.

Similar to running a company. You can build the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it before your capital runs out... you're out of a job. Had he gotten more wins this year (the NBA's currency) and kept his job... then I would say he did a great job.

[jbk1234]

I'm a Bulls fan that doesn't care about the Sixers one way or the other. That being said, Hinkie got fired way too early. He should've at the very least gotten 1 more year to see how everything looks to pan out. Next year they have the following:

Embiid
Saric
Atleast one top 5 pick, maybe even 2 if LAL conveys
Okafor and Noel, 1 of which will likely be traded and will fetch something good in return

That's pretty damn good cupboard if you ask me. Especially if you consider that he was handed garbage when he got the job. He traded Jrue Holiday, who has proven to be overrated. He was also the first to notice that MCW putting up those Oscar Robertson #s was fools gold and sold high before he was exposed.

Now if this time next year they still suck and their prospects don't look very promising, THEN it would be appropriate to look into finding a new GM. Ownership then the plan when he was hired, then get him canned before we see the end results.

Hinkie wasn't a bad GM because he couldn't evaluate talent or because he concluded that the Sixers needed to enter a rebuild. Hinkie was a bad GM because he failed to appreciate that tanking produces diminishing returns after a certain point. Yes he collected some good assets while his team was as bad as possible. Yes he made good trades (although Jrue was injured when he was traded which is shady). But the underlying question I have is what assets would the Sixers have if they didn't deliberately attempt to be as bad as possible and how would those assets compare to what they have now? Could he have doubled his win total and been at the same or even a better place? I think the answer to that is yes.

[76ers]

I'm a Bulls fan that doesn't care about the Sixers one way or the other. That being said, Hinkie got fired way too early. He should've at the very least gotten 1 more year to see how everything looks to pan out. Next year they have the following:

Embiid
Saric
Atleast one top 5 pick, maybe even 2 if LAL conveys
Okafor and Noel, 1 of which will likely be traded and will fetch something good in return

That's pretty damn good cupboard if you ask me. Especially if you consider that he was handed garbage when he got the job. He traded Jrue Holiday, who has proven to be overrated. He was also the first to notice that MCW putting up those Oscar Robertson #s was fools gold and sold high before he was exposed.

Now if this time next year they still suck and their prospects don't look very promising, THEN it would be appropriate to look into finding a new GM. Ownership then the plan when he was hired, then get him canned before we see the end results.

Good post, people seem to quickly forget how bleak the Sixers future was in 2012, when he had essentially had a bare cupboard of assets. I personally wish Hinkie got to see this through, because it feels so incomplete. People still give Hinkie crap for trading a "bona fide ROY" when he has been garbage since his arrival to the Bucks.

[CrookedJ]

I understood Hinkie's plan and hoped that the Sixers would have the courage to stick with it and see if it would work, mainly because its interesting.

I do however think that his tanking and master plan was missing two key developments in the current NBA. Rising cap space and movement away from playing two traditional bigs.

In listening to the Lowe podcast with him last week, I felt that he hadn't anticipate that both traditional bigs and cap space ( as trade lubricant) would be less important than they used to be. Maybe these changed more recently than I recall, after his power point presentation was already given... but the fast rising cap means instead of 20-25 teams being capped out and looking for some one to save them, there are only a few.

The bigs conundrum is curious, did he think that the current fad of small ball is one he could wait out ( possible I suppose), or did he not see coming? The prospect of having 4 primary assets tied up in traditional bigs - with injury issues, log jam issues etc - these are not assets that can be maximized.

Frankly while I see the value in the tank, the best example to follow is Boston. Get a bunch of top 5 picks over some time, pick the best players you can, and then trade them for stars.

[JonFromVA]

The game is filled with little ironies, like the Celtics failing to tank for Oden, and then trading away the #5 pick (Jeff Green) in a package for Ray Allen that helped convince KG to green light a trade. If they had dismantled their team and traded Pierce in anticipation of rebuilding around their pick ... that never would have happened.

otoh, the Pistons pick that they wasted on Darko was actually the result of a trade made like a decade beforehand that finally conveyed as the #2. The #1 overall that became Kyrie Irving actually belonged to the Clippers who gave it up just to get Baron Davis out of town. Heck, the #1 overall that became LeBron was the result of the Cavs winning their final game of the season and falling in to a tie with the Nuggets for the worst record. Or, when the Cavs won a tie breaking coin flip with the Pelicans, it was the Pelicans who'd go on to win the lottery and get Anthony Davis.

Winning teams focus on creating opportunities and making the most of them when they happen. There's no formula for that, though. Jerry Krause assembled the Jordan-Pippen Bulls team and never worked in the league again after his attempts to rebuild the team failed.

[Arp590]

I'm guessing this is a swipe at Sam Hinkie, but I guess I am an idiot, haha. He did an excellent job compiling assets and remolding the team. They are in a great position now.

No just the opposite. I read this as the average person is too stupid to comprehend Hinkie's master plan, which I believe has worked out great.

It hasn't worked out great... unless his master plan was to compile a bunch of assets and then get canned. He was able to get the assets, he wasn't able to keep his job. I can't believe getting fired was part of his master plan.

Similar to running a company. You can build the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it before your capital runs out... you're out of a job. Had he gotten more wins this year (the NBA's currency) and kept his job... then I would say he did a great job.

Getting fired wasn't part of his plan, hence why the person quoted mentioned people are too stupid to comprehend his plan... therefore he was fired.

[Snotbubbles]

I'm a Bulls fan that doesn't care about the Sixers one way or the other. That being said, Hinkie got fired way too early. He should've at the very least gotten 1 more year to see how everything looks to pan out. Next year they have the following:

Embiid
Saric
Atleast one top 5 pick, maybe even 2 if LAL conveys
Okafor and Noel, 1 of which will likely be traded and will fetch something good in return

That's pretty damn good cupboard if you ask me. Especially if you consider that he was handed garbage when he got the job. He traded Jrue Holiday, who has proven to be overrated. He was also the first to notice that MCW putting up those Oscar Robertson #s was fools gold and sold high before he was exposed.

Now if this time next year they still suck and their prospects don't look very promising, THEN it would be appropriate to look into finding a new GM. Ownership then the plan when he was hired, then get him canned before we see the end results.

Hinkie wasn't a bad GM because he couldn't evaluate talent or because he concluded that the Sixers needed to enter a rebuild. Hinkie was a bad GM because he failed to appreciate that tanking produces diminishing returns after a certain point. Yes he collected some good assets while his team was as bad as possible. Yes he made good trades (although Jrue was injured when he was traded which is shady). But the underlying question I have is what assets would the Sixers have if they didn't deliberately attempt to be as bad as possible and how would those assets compare to what they have now? Could he have doubled his win total and been at the same or even a better place? I think the answer to that is yes.

Yes? Assuming he undid all his moves and simply drafted with his picks he would have:

Jrue Holliday who is still hurt.
Michael Carter-Williams
2014 draft maybe Julius Randle
2015 draft maybe Mario Hezonja or WCS
2016 drafting maybe 4 plus MIA and OKC picks
And he would owe out a future 1st round pick to ORL

Yeah, not nearly as nice as where they are at and definitely not doubling the win total.

[Snotbubbles]

No just the opposite. I read this as the average person is too stupid to comprehend Hinkie's master plan, which I believe has worked out great.

It hasn't worked out great... unless his master plan was to compile a bunch of assets and then get canned. He was able to get the assets, he wasn't able to keep his job. I can't believe getting fired was part of his master plan.

Similar to running a company. You can build the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it before your capital runs out... you're out of a job. Had he gotten more wins this year (the NBA's currency) and kept his job... then I would say he did a great job.

Getting fired wasn't part of his plan, hence why the person quoted mentioned people are too stupid to comprehend his plan... therefore he was fired.

He resigned. Maybe he didn't understand his own plan.

[Sark]

Literally nothing he did was revolutionary or genius. He just took an idea and cranked it up to 1000, with little care about how it would affect the brand. He got fired because tarnishing the brand was a little more important than he originally thought it was.

[jbk1234]

I'm a Bulls fan that doesn't care about the Sixers one way or the other. That being said, Hinkie got fired way too early. He should've at the very least gotten 1 more year to see how everything looks to pan out. Next year they have the following:

Embiid
Saric
Atleast one top 5 pick, maybe even 2 if LAL conveys
Okafor and Noel, 1 of which will likely be traded and will fetch something good in return

That's pretty damn good cupboard if you ask me. Especially if you consider that he was handed garbage when he got the job. He traded Jrue Holiday, who has proven to be overrated. He was also the first to notice that MCW putting up those Oscar Robertson #s was fools gold and sold high before he was exposed.

Now if this time next year they still suck and their prospects don't look very promising, THEN it would be appropriate to look into finding a new GM. Ownership then the plan when he was hired, then get him canned before we see the end results.

Hinkie wasn't a bad GM because he couldn't evaluate talent or because he concluded that the Sixers needed to enter a rebuild. Hinkie was a bad GM because he failed to appreciate that tanking produces diminishing returns after a certain point. Yes he collected some good assets while his team was as bad as possible. Yes he made good trades (although Jrue was injured when he was traded which is shady). But the underlying question I have is what assets would the Sixers have if they didn't deliberately attempt to be as bad as possible and how would those assets compare to what they have now? Could he have doubled his win total and been at the same or even a better place? I think the answer to that is yes.

Yes? Assuming he undid all his moves and simply drafted with his picks he would have:

Jrue Holliday who is still hurt.
Michael Carter-Williams
2014 draft maybe Julius Randle
2015 draft maybe Mario Hezonja or WCS
2016 drafting maybe 4 plus MIA and OKC picks
And he would owe out a future 1st round pick to ORL

Yeah, not nearly as nice as where they are at and definitely not doubling the win total.

Except for the fact that it looks like Philly knew Jrue was hurt when they traded him (which is just fine from the Sixers' perspective), I haven't been critical of his trades.

But how much worse off would they be if they signed some journeymen vet FAs to affordable short term deals instead of trotting out a D League squad? I have trouble seeing it.

If they won 25-29 games in 2014, Saric, LaVine, McDermmot and Vonleh would still have been on the board.

If they won 28-33 games in 2015, Payne, Oubre, Booker and Myles Turner would still have been on the board.

And this year, they could have won 10-15 more games and still had between the 2nd or 6th pick.

All of this assumes that instead of getting jumped over, you're not the one doing the jumping up in the lottery. But this isn't the 80s or 90s and almost none of these kids have two+ years in college that's needed in order to evaluate them.

[azwfan]

No just the opposite. I read this as the average person is too stupid to comprehend Hinkie's master plan, which I believe has worked out great.

It hasn't worked out great... unless his master plan was to compile a bunch of assets and then get canned. He was able to get the assets, he wasn't able to keep his job. I can't believe getting fired was part of his master plan.

Similar to running a company. You can build the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it before your capital runs out... you're out of a job. Had he gotten more wins this year (the NBA's currency) and kept his job... then I would say he did a great job.

Getting fired wasn't part of his plan, hence why the person quoted mentioned people are too stupid to comprehend his plan... therefore he was fired.

A good plan should incorporate the needs of the stakeholders... especially your boss. If / as those needs change, you should be able to adapt. He either didn't want to adapt, or reading the letter, looks like he just disregarded their needs. Either way... its a failure.