Official "Hire Sam Hinkie" Thread

[Quake Griffin]

He can work under a GM, but he's given me no confidence that he can do anything more than acquire assets.
No fan base deserves to be sold multiple years of, "we got picks yall...you'll see."

Drafts in an of themselves are a crapshoot. If this was the NFL, I'd like the model way more because picks in and of themselves are just flat out valuable - an absolute necessity to building your roster and the depth.

But this is the NBA. You're losing if you don't have a star player and some drafts have LeBron and Wade and Melo and Bosh. Other drafts have Anthony Bennett and Otto Porter.
Dunno how you can sell that type of unknown to an NBA fan base. An NFL fan base? Sure. NBA? ZZZZzzz.

[nickhx2]

the whole point of his strategy was to maximize his chances at a star in the draft, among other things

[Quake Griffin]

There's more to building a team/ franchise than math. He only has that one component.

Attempting to maximize your chance at drafting a star is too remote of a gamble to sell to a fan base.
Hey, look at KAT, Lavine, Wiggins. We'll get there, let them develop = good sell.
Hey, look, we're doing math. Just watch the worst basketball EVER (damn near), because eventually we'll get a star = awful sell.

In a world of Eli Mannings, John Elways, Magic Johnsons, and Kobe Bryants, making your team a wasteland is not a good idea.
Tell me any star in the next draft isn't hoping that Boston is there at the right slot and not a Hinkie run 76ers?
What player would feel great about their opportunity to grow and develop under Hinkie?

[green]Don't worry. He's got math.
Michael Jordan was gonna fall into his lap. We were all going to be proven wrong....and when Michael Jordan fell into his lap, he was gonna be competent enough to field a winner around him.[/green]

[nickhx2]

There's more to building a team/ franchise than math. He only has that one component.

Attempting to maximize your chance at drafting a star is too remote of a gamble to sell to a fan base.
Hey, look at KAT, Lavine, Wiggins. We'll get there, let them develop = good sell.
Hey, look, we're doing math. Just watch the worst basketball EVER (damn near), because eventually we'll get a star = awful sell.

In a world of Eli Mannings, John Elways, Magic Johnsons, and Kobe Bryants, making your team a wasteland is not a good idea.
Tell me any star in the next draft isn't hoping that Boston is there at the right slot and not a Hinkie run 76ers?
What player would feel great about their opportunity to grow and develop under Hinkie?

[green]Don't worry. He's got math.
Michael Jordan was gonna fall into his lap. We were all going to be proven wrong....and when Michael Jordan fell into his lap, he was gonna be competent enough to field a winner around him.[/green]

Well, clearly there is more to building a successful sports franchise than the draft. But you have to start somewhere when you are devoid of talent, which is what happened after the team sold the farm to get a decrepit andrew bynum. What seems to be the biggest point lost on critics is that the team was pretty much at ground zero.

Furthermore, Hinkie wasn't trying to sell anything to the fan base. They were already all-in. If you look at fan polls after his exit, the majority was pretty upset he was essentially forced out. They seemed to have really bought into the process. The people who didn't buy into it were the people on the outside mostly, and then eventually the owners who caved into whatever pressure there was. IMO i agree, and beyond that they made a gigantic mistake. Bryan colangelo is an awful GM who has no idea how to manage money now entering two offseasons where nba contracts are going to skyrocket. I just want to add that the most amazing thing to me is the gigantic disparity in people who thought hinkie and his strategies were trash came from the people who weren't fans.

Anyway, in the end you cannot win in this league without star power. Giving yourself more chances at a star is certainly logical. Outsiders thinking they could build around MCW and winning rings with a guy like him isn't logical at all. Let's say you know the team is going to be out of contention for the next 5 years as you restock, no matter what. What helps you reach your ceiling faster? A bunch of top 10 picks? Or a bunch of top 3 picks? Nothing is ever certain with the draft but the more shots you have at the really top picks every year, the more options, the more value, and the more talent you can accrue to accelerate the overall process.

I find it disingenuous you continue to bring up how the guy would have built the team beyond accumulating assets. I don't see anyone arguing that, and if they were I missed it myself. Personally, I don't know how capable he would have been and literally nobody knows because he's not in that position anymore. What I can opine though on what i've seen in his tenure, is in a league where you go from A to Z, and in a circumstance where he was contracted to go from A to B, i thought he did so fantastically well. It was definitely not without its flaws. He should have brought in some more vets earlier on, given more chances to some other dudes who were looking for second chances, and not having a PG for a while this past year was pretty stupid. But i'd say he did pretty damn well all things considered.

I think we will just seem to argue in circles. You seem to have a preference for reducing this discussion into sarcastic comments about how a strategy based on math is somehow invalid or illegitimate. And if you dismiss the argument because it's nothing more than math and that math somehow doesn't get you anywhere, but instead you'd rather punch ghosts that aren't there then what is there left to really discuss?

[Quake Griffin]

There's more to building a team/ franchise than math. He only has that one component.

Attempting to maximize your chance at drafting a star is too remote of a gamble to sell to a fan base.
Hey, look at KAT, Lavine, Wiggins. We'll get there, let them develop = good sell.
Hey, look, we're doing math. Just watch the worst basketball EVER (damn near), because eventually we'll get a star = awful sell.

In a world of Eli Mannings, John Elways, Magic Johnsons, and Kobe Bryants, making your team a wasteland is not a good idea.
Tell me any star in the next draft isn't hoping that Boston is there at the right slot and not a Hinkie run 76ers?
What player would feel great about their opportunity to grow and develop under Hinkie?

[green]Don't worry. He's got math.
Michael Jordan was gonna fall into his lap. We were all going to be proven wrong....and when Michael Jordan fell into his lap, he was gonna be competent enough to field a winner around him.[/green]

Well, clearly there is more to building a successful sports franchise than the draft. But you have to start somewhere when you are devoid of talent, which is what happened after the team sold the farm to get a decrepit andrew bynum. What seems to be the biggest point lost on critics is that the team was pretty much at ground zero.

Furthermore, Hinkie wasn't trying to sell anything to the fan base. They were already all-in. If you look at fan polls after his exit, the majority was pretty upset he was essentially forced out. They seemed to have really bought into the process. The people who didn't buy into it were the people on the outside mostly, and then eventually the owners who caved into whatever pressure there was. IMO i agree, and beyond that they made a gigantic mistake. Bryan colangelo is an awful GM who has no idea how to manage money now entering two offseasons where nba contracts are going to skyrocket. I just want to add that the most amazing thing to me is the gigantic disparity in people who thought hinkie and his strategies were trash came from the people who weren't fans.

Anyway, in the end you cannot win in this league without star power. Giving yourself more chances at a star is certainly logical. Outsiders thinking they could build around MCW and winning rings with a guy like him isn't logical at all. Let's say you know the team is going to be out of contention for the next 5 years as you restock, no matter what. What helps you reach your ceiling faster? A bunch of top 10 picks? Or a bunch of top 3 picks? Nothing is ever certain with the draft but the more shots you have at the really top picks every year, the more options, the more value, and the more talent you can accrue to accelerate the overall process.

I find it disingenuous you continue to bring up how the guy would have built the team beyond accumulating assets. I don't see anyone arguing that, and if they were I missed it myself. Personally, I don't know how capable he would have been and literally nobody knows because he's not in that position anymore. What I can opine though on what i've seen in his tenure, is in a league where you go from A to Z, and in a circumstance where he was contracted to go from A to B, i thought he did so fantastically well. It was definitely not without its flaws. He should have brought in some more vets earlier on, given more chances to some other dudes who were looking for second chances, and not having a PG for a while this past year was pretty stupid. But i'd say he did pretty damn well all things considered.

I think we will just seem to argue in circles. You seem to have a preference for reducing this discussion into sarcastic comments about how a strategy based on math is somehow invalid or illegitimate. And if you dismiss the argument because it's nothing more than math and that math somehow doesn't get you anywhere, but instead you'd rather punch ghosts that aren't there then what is there left to really discuss?

You ignored an entire part of my post and didn't address it in order to whine about the posture of it because it was sarcastic. This is an internet forum and we're grown ups. If you can't handle sarcasm or don't want to deal with it, that's your right. However, if you're interested in having a thorough conversation, it behooves you to address the point I made on its merits - in any posture you'd like to respond by the way.


My haggles with your post:
1) If you're a Philly fan, you have no choice but to be on board with Hinkie acquiring assets (math). That's like saying a homeless man was on board with me bringing him a McDonald cheeseburger everyday.

The fans don't watch the games (last time I checked).
The fans don't attend the games (28th in attendance).

So actually, whether a bunch of keyboard warriors are actually offer him support or click a box saying they're in support of him, they actually aren't buying his product. Thus, no you cannot sell that to a fan base.

2) This post is about Hinkie coming here to the Clippers. My responses are based around not wanting him here in a GM capacity. My thoughts about Hinkie have NOTHING to do with what direction Philly decided to go in after forcing Hinkie out.

3) In connection with #2, I think his track record of probably not being able to build around a star player if he happened to luck into one is fair. It is MY assessment of why i wouldn't want him here as a GM, not an attack on any statement you made about him.

I don't believe in his ability to draft players or develop them. I do believe in his ability to draft them and deal them for more assets (mathmetician). It would trouble me as a fan. Is this the year we get better? Or if the lottery balls dont fall our way, is our pick getting dealt for more assets?

[nickhx2]

I didn't ignore those points. I just didn't think they had enough substance to respond to. Nobody would argue a player wouldn't rather play for boston, for one thing. But the point i'm repeatedly trying to make is that he did right in building a foundation of talent and assets that was not there before. Instead you keep going on about how he can't be a GM who can do more than that, when i'm not pushing that anyway. As far as the other stuff, I'm not whining about your post. I literally couldn't give a rat's ass how you want to respond, I'm just telling you we can't really have a serious discussion if you'd rather just make posts with attitude in them. I like talking about things, but i'm fickle in responding if i don't see it going anywhere. I don't think it's productive to just be snarky or whatever if we are trying to talk about things.

Anyway, If you are a philly fan it's true you don't have control over it. But you can express your approval or disapproval. From what i've seen the majority of the fans approved. And i'm not talking about realgm armchair gm's. I also think you cannot equate watchability with approval. You can have an unwatchable team while the team is working through a building process that you approve of. During losing seasons there were plenty of times i didn't want to watch the games even though i felt this team was on the right track (thought that was not often). There were also times i didn't want to watch this team this year even though the team was successful. Just saying you can't pin one exactly on the other. I can totally do other more important things with my life while feeling like the team is going through an ugly, but necessary process of development.

Now since you seem to be talking about a literal sale, which obviously i did not take from the context of your post (i doubt anyone would have), sure nobody's buying. But hinkie wasn't trying to sell gate tickets anyway. That wasn't his MO, his job, or why he was hired. If the new owners wanted to sell tickets they wouldn't have allowed him to do anything remotely close to what he was doing. So you're kind of putting that out there as a criticism of him even though it wasn't his prerogative. I don't understand why that is relevant.

WRT hinkie coming here, as I've said before and i think as many others have echoed, I think most of us feel the same. We don't know what kind of guy he is with an established team, why would we want him here? So again you are punching at ghosts because you bring it up as an issue in response to me and you seem to want to fight me on it but hinkie's abilities as a non-drafting/asset-accumulating GM are not something anyone truly knows about. Maybe I just misunderstand why you keep bringing it up in responses to me. Please understand that I'm not the one who created this thread though.

On your 3rd point: i don't see how that assessment can even be realized. He doesn't have any star player and he was still in phase 1, which was getting as many chances at them as possible. So I don't see how you can assess that he's incapable of building around a star player when he doesn't yet have one. If embiid/okafor or whomever they do pick this offseason do turn out to be good, at best we can say he was on the money with them. But nobody can really say he coulda taken the next step as a GM. How good he is as an overall team builder doesn't make much of a difference to me though. I just know that for someone who started with nothing he's left the franchise in significantly better shape than before with loads of assets and a bunch of potentially high picks for the next few years. If he gets 2 out of the 3 top picks in this draft a lot of people will say he's lucky. I know i'll be saying it's because he put himself in position to be the receiver of that luck.



Since I've spewed a billion words on this let me at least pose this one last thing, as I doubt we are agreeing on this topic and I get the feeling we are not communicating effectively (maybe i'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say, you with me, some of both, idk). Are you of the opinion that hinkie is doing this indefinitely? Because then i can better see why it might be so distasteful. You suck one year, go to the next, draft and don't see what you like, and repeat as a never ending process. And really how would you ever know if your team is good if you keep recycling your top picks every year? That I can see as hard to stomach.

However, from all accounts that I've understood, hinkie's plan was only supposed to be for a set number of years before they started turning it around. I heard julius erving say something about how he hated it at first. But after talking to the guy he was on board and he mentioned some 7 year timeline (at which i was first aghast). But i bring that up as a point that there was very likely a very set timeline for the process to unfold. I can't speak to what they were actually planning with any certainty, but for someone who is as calculated as he is, i think it'd be pretty fair to say he was planning to build assets and then as much draft capital as possible so he could hit it big this year in a draft with simmons, ingram, bender, etc, while ensuring picks from other teams would keep pouring in as they worked to contention. I mean if we went back to 1999 and a team was doing the same thing while aiming to have a bunch of potential high picks in the 2003 draft, that's not troubling because there is a specific year they wanna hit multiple jackpots and a specific plan to do so, right? It was my impression that all along they were doing the same thing for the 2016 draft for a chance at a generational lebron type talent. As such, and with them having their own pick and the lakers' top 3 pick, i'd say he did a good job in creating more favorable odds for an entire franchise.

[Quake Griffin]

I didn't ignore those points. I just didn't think they had enough substance to respond to. Nobody would argue a player wouldn't rather play for boston, for one thing. But the point i'm repeatedly trying to make is that he did right in building a foundation of talent and assets that was not there before. Instead you keep going on about how he can't be a GM who can do more than that, when i'm not pushing that anyway. As far as the other stuff, I'm not whining about your post. I literally couldn't give a rat's ass how you want to respond, I'm just telling you we can't really have a serious discussion if you'd rather just make posts with attitude in them. I like talking about things, but i'm fickle in responding if i don't see it going anywhere. I don't think it's productive to just be snarky or whatever if we are trying to talk about things.

The main point wasn't that Boston was the better place. It was that making your team a wasteland makes it an unattractive place for players to play. A new rookie could pull an Eli Manning. Vets won't sign there to help develop the young core that you're drafting.

If you don't give a rat's ass how I respond, then just respond on the merits and don't make the sarcasm an issue.

Anyway, If you are a philly fan it's true you don't have control over it. But you can express your approval or disapproval. From what i've seen the majority of the fans approved. And i'm not talking about realgm armchair gm's. I also think you cannot equate watchability with approval. You can have an unwatchable team while the team is working through a building process that you approve of. During losing seasons there were plenty of times i didn't want to watch the games even though i felt this team was on the right track (thought that was not often). There were also times i didn't want to watch this team this year even though the team was successful. Just saying you can't pin one exactly on the other. I can totally do other more important things with my life while feeling like the team is going through an ugly, but necessary process of development.

Now since you seem to be talking about a literal sale, which obviously i did not take from the context of your post (i doubt anyone would have), sure nobody's buying. But hinkie wasn't trying to sell gate tickets anyway. That wasn't his MO, his job, or why he was hired. If the new owners wanted to sell tickets they wouldn't have allowed him to do anything remotely close to what he was doing. So you're kind of putting that out there as a criticism of him even though it wasn't his prerogative. I don't understand why that is relevant.

The best way you talk is with your time and your money...not on the internet or in a poll.
With that said, using the word "equate" isn't proper here. The two are merely related and a function of time.

The fact that they won't patronize the team or even watch let's me know that they know Hinkie hasn't done chit for them and that their hopes and dreams currently exist in the abstract. If not, then tell me exactly where they're going to land in the lottery. Prove to me that they won't have bad luck and have all those picks land in bad slots?

You can't

WRT hinkie coming here, as I've said before and i think as many others have echoed, I think most of us feel the same. We don't know what kind of guy he is with an established team, why would we want him here? So again you are punching at ghosts because you bring it up as an issue in response to me and you seem to want to fight me on it but hinkie's abilities as a non-drafting/asset-accumulating GM are not something anyone truly knows about. Maybe I just misunderstand why you keep bringing it up in responses to me. Please understand that I'm not the one who created this thread though.

You brought up Colangelo in your last post when I never said he was a good GM and I never said I GAF about what Philly did post Hinkie. My 1st post ITT is a response to the OP. You responded to that. So I reminded you what the thread was about. Just because you're the resident Hinkie shill of this forum doesn't mean you dominate this conversation.

On your 3rd point: i don't see how that assessment can even be realized. He doesn't have any star player and he was still in phase 1, which was getting as many chances at them as possible. So I don't see how you can assess that he's incapable of building around a star player when he doesn't yet have one. If embiid/okafor or whomever they do pick this offseason do turn out to be good, at best we can say he was on the money with them. But nobody can really say he coulda taken the next step as a GM. How good he is as an overall team builder doesn't make much of a difference to me though. I just know that for someone who started with nothing he's left the franchise in significantly better shape than before with loads of assets and a bunch of potentially high picks for the next few years. If he gets 2 out of the 3 top picks in this draft a lot of people will say he's lucky. I know i'll be saying it's because he put himself in position to be the receiver of that luck.

He's had 4 lottery picks...5 if you include Nerlens Noel and has done nothing with them. It's not like the picks he's made have turned out that great on other teams either.

So I'm supposed to look at his draft record that isnt stellar and assume that he could build around a star?


But ya know, he's got assets.

Since I've spewed a billion words on this let me at least pose this one last thing, as I doubt we are agreeing on this topic and I get the feeling we are not communicating effectively (maybe i'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say, you with me, some of both, idk). Are you of the opinion that hinkie is doing this indefinitely? Because then i can better see why it might be so distasteful. You suck one year, go to the next, draft and don't see what you like, and repeat as a never ending process. And really how would you ever know if your team is good if you keep recycling your top picks every year? That I can see as hard to stomach.

However, from all accounts that I've understood, hinkie's plan was only supposed to be for a set number of years before they started turning it around. I heard julius erving say something about how he hated it at first. But after talking to the guy he was on board and he mentioned some 7 year timeline (at which i was first aghast). But i bring that up as a point that there was very likely a very set timeline for the process to unfold. I can't speak to what they were actually planning with any certainty, but for someone who is as calculated as he is, i think it'd be pretty fair to say he was planning to build assets and then as much draft capital as possible so he could hit it big this year in a draft with simmons, ingram, bender, etc, while ensuring picks from other teams would keep pouring in as they worked to contention. I mean if we went back to 1999 and a team was doing the same thing while aiming to have a bunch of potential high picks in the 2003 draft, that's not troubling because there is a specific year they wanna hit multiple jackpots and a specific plan to do so, right? It was my impression that all along they were doing the same thing for the 2016 draft for a chance at a generational lebron type talent. As such, and with them having their own pick and the lakers' top 3 pick, i'd say he did a good job in creating more favorable odds for an entire franchise.

How do you figure that? With the lottery balls falling he right way, they could have had the Lakers pick last year and I don't like any of those guys better than Towns (even Simmons), so I don't get how this was a specific target for this year. If the Lakers pick does fall to them, those 3 players will be gone (not the worst thing in the world tbh)...but it's VERY generous to say 2016 was the target all along just because Simmons is being hyped up now.

Moreover, I think if he'd been hitting on his picks to begin with, he wouldnt be selling this as hard.
Picks sucks? Trade him for assets...oh that was the plan all along.
Can't get from under Embiid? Sell hope and the return of damaged goods.
Draft a POS Okafor and not Porzingas? Stay mum on the subject and let rumors swirl around the internet about it.


You build an organization from the top down. Not the bottom up.
As much as I love LeBron, I'd rather have a Popovich (good) operation with no guarantee of a draft slot than have him (or any superstar) in the draft.

Good ownership
Good GMing
Good scouting
Good Coaching.
If you build that, they will come....players (even star players) and assets.

[nickhx2]

I didn't ignore those points. I just didn't think they had enough substance to respond to. Nobody would argue a player wouldn't rather play for boston, for one thing. But the point i'm repeatedly trying to make is that he did right in building a foundation of talent and assets that was not there before. Instead you keep going on about how he can't be a GM who can do more than that, when i'm not pushing that anyway. As far as the other stuff, I'm not whining about your post. I literally couldn't give a rat's ass how you want to respond, I'm just telling you we can't really have a serious discussion if you'd rather just make posts with attitude in them. I like talking about things, but i'm fickle in responding if i don't see it going anywhere. I don't think it's productive to just be snarky or whatever if we are trying to talk about things.

The main point wasn't that Boston was the better place. It was that making your team a wasteland makes it an unattractive place for players to play. A new rookie could pull an Eli Manning. Vets won't sign there to help develop the young core that you're drafting.

If you don't give a rat's ass how I respond, then just respond on the merits and don't make the sarcasm an issue.

Anyway, If you are a philly fan it's true you don't have control over it. But you can express your approval or disapproval. From what i've seen the majority of the fans approved. And i'm not talking about realgm armchair gm's. I also think you cannot equate watchability with approval. You can have an unwatchable team while the team is working through a building process that you approve of. During losing seasons there were plenty of times i didn't want to watch the games even though i felt this team was on the right track (thought that was not often). There were also times i didn't want to watch this team this year even though the team was successful. Just saying you can't pin one exactly on the other. I can totally do other more important things with my life while feeling like the team is going through an ugly, but necessary process of development.

Now since you seem to be talking about a literal sale, which obviously i did not take from the context of your post (i doubt anyone would have), sure nobody's buying. But hinkie wasn't trying to sell gate tickets anyway. That wasn't his MO, his job, or why he was hired. If the new owners wanted to sell tickets they wouldn't have allowed him to do anything remotely close to what he was doing. So you're kind of putting that out there as a criticism of him even though it wasn't his prerogative. I don't understand why that is relevant.

The best way you talk is with your time and your money...not on the internet or in a poll.
With that said, using the word "equate" isn't proper here. The two are merely related and a function of time.

The fact that they won't patronize the team or even watch let's me know that they know Hinkie hasn't done chit for them and that their hopes and dreams currently exist in the abstract. If not, then tell me exactly where they're going to land in the lottery. Prove to me that they won't have bad luck and have all those picks land in bad slots?

You can't

WRT hinkie coming here, as I've said before and i think as many others have echoed, I think most of us feel the same. We don't know what kind of guy he is with an established team, why would we want him here? So again you are punching at ghosts because you bring it up as an issue in response to me and you seem to want to fight me on it but hinkie's abilities as a non-drafting/asset-accumulating GM are not something anyone truly knows about. Maybe I just misunderstand why you keep bringing it up in responses to me. Please understand that I'm not the one who created this thread though.

You brought up Colangelo in your last post when I never said he was a good GM and I never said I GAF about what Philly did post Hinkie. My 1st post ITT is a response to the OP. You responded to that. So I reminded you what the thread was about. Just because you're the resident Hinkie shill of this forum doesn't mean you dominate this conversation.

On your 3rd point: i don't see how that assessment can even be realized. He doesn't have any star player and he was still in phase 1, which was getting as many chances at them as possible. So I don't see how you can assess that he's incapable of building around a star player when he doesn't yet have one. If embiid/okafor or whomever they do pick this offseason do turn out to be good, at best we can say he was on the money with them. But nobody can really say he coulda taken the next step as a GM. How good he is as an overall team builder doesn't make much of a difference to me though. I just know that for someone who started with nothing he's left the franchise in significantly better shape than before with loads of assets and a bunch of potentially high picks for the next few years. If he gets 2 out of the 3 top picks in this draft a lot of people will say he's lucky. I know i'll be saying it's because he put himself in position to be the receiver of that luck.

He's had 4 lottery picks...5 if you include Nerlens Noel and has done nothing with them. It's not like the picks he's made have turned out that great on other teams either.

So I'm supposed to look at his draft record that isnt stellar and assume that he could build around a star?


But ya know, he's got assets.

Since I've spewed a billion words on this let me at least pose this one last thing, as I doubt we are agreeing on this topic and I get the feeling we are not communicating effectively (maybe i'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say, you with me, some of both, idk). Are you of the opinion that hinkie is doing this indefinitely? Because then i can better see why it might be so distasteful. You suck one year, go to the next, draft and don't see what you like, and repeat as a never ending process. And really how would you ever know if your team is good if you keep recycling your top picks every year? That I can see as hard to stomach.

However, from all accounts that I've understood, hinkie's plan was only supposed to be for a set number of years before they started turning it around. I heard julius erving say something about how he hated it at first. But after talking to the guy he was on board and he mentioned some 7 year timeline (at which i was first aghast). But i bring that up as a point that there was very likely a very set timeline for the process to unfold. I can't speak to what they were actually planning with any certainty, but for someone who is as calculated as he is, i think it'd be pretty fair to say he was planning to build assets and then as much draft capital as possible so he could hit it big this year in a draft with simmons, ingram, bender, etc, while ensuring picks from other teams would keep pouring in as they worked to contention. I mean if we went back to 1999 and a team was doing the same thing while aiming to have a bunch of potential high picks in the 2003 draft, that's not troubling because there is a specific year they wanna hit multiple jackpots and a specific plan to do so, right? It was my impression that all along they were doing the same thing for the 2016 draft for a chance at a generational lebron type talent. As such, and with them having their own pick and the lakers' top 3 pick, i'd say he did a good job in creating more favorable odds for an entire franchise.

How do you figure that? With the lottery balls falling he right way, they could have had the Lakers pick last year and I don't like any of those guys better than Towns (even Simmons), so I don't get how this was a specific target for this year. If the Lakers pick does fall to them, those 3 players will be gone (not the worst thing in the world tbh)...but it's VERY generous to say 2016 was the target all along just because Simmons is being hyped up now.

Moreover, I think if he'd been hitting on his picks to begin with, he wouldnt be selling this as hard.
Picks sucks? Trade him for assets...oh that was the plan all along.
Can't get from under Embiid? Sell hope and the return of damaged goods.
Draft a POS Okafor and not Porzingas? Stay mum on the subject and let rumors swirl around the internet about it.


You build an organization from the top down. Not the bottom up.
As much as I love LeBron, I'd rather have a Popovich (good) operation with no guarantee of a draft slot than have him (or any superstar) in the draft.

Good ownership
Good GMing
Good scouting
Good Coaching.
If you build that, they will come....players (even star players) and assets.

No you won't get the premium top tier FA's. But if the past few years are any indication, the rookies seemed to sign anyway. And at the end of the day, signing a bunch of mid-tier veterans is going to happen because there is so much money out there that they are going to want to get paid.

And again your equating watchability with approval of the plan is not what i agree with. What I also don't get is why you keep going on and on about how hinkie's done nothing for the team? To repeat again for the millionth time, the team was completely devoid of assets except for basically jrue holiday and thaddeus young. There was nothing there. And now they're sitting on a bundle of young talent, can potentially go two out of top three in this year's draft with some legitimate franchise-changing talent in the draft, and have a bunch of options in the coming years because of their fleecing of the kings. Why does this mean he did nothing for the team? Do you truly feel they are not in better position now to turn the franchise around than when he first started?

"If not, then tell me exactly where they're going to land in the lottery. Prove to me that they won't have bad luck and have all those picks land in bad slots?"

Honestly this comment among others makes it absolutely 100% clear you don't have any understanding of the point of what he was doing. It's like you don't even get the mechanics of the draft. It's part of why i was saying we won't agree with each other on the topic.

"Just because you're the resident Hinkie shill of this forum doesn't mean you dominate this conversation."

and with this part, it's 100% cemented we won't. i don't have anymore interest in engaging you since you can't calm your damn self. unfortunate you wasted a bunch of further words i'm not going to bother reading

[Quake Griffin]

1) I don't equate watchability with the approval of a plan. I think watchability, attendance and the patronizing of your team are related to an overall approval with the state of the team regardless of what comes out of the mouth or keyboards of fans.

The fact that they don't do either of those three means they don't approve of the product on the floor and, more than likely, have more of a wait and see attitude for "the plan" at the end of the day than they lead on.

2) Hasn't done chit for them = He hasn't landed the plane yet. In case you're not getting it. I'm not enamored with the accumulation of assets. I'm more interested in how he lands the plane, which is what I view as the most important aspect of building a team.

3) LOL. Yeah man. The lottery and the draft are way too difficult for me to bend my head around...just lol

4) Convenient way of ducking out of the conversation and not addressing Hinkie's ability to draft.


People like you make this conversation the worst to have. You think because you're a fan of something unconventional that you're the only smart person in the room. If someone disagrees with you, they don't understand the draft or that Hinkie is trying to better his chances at getting a star in the draft. It's annoying. You got called a shill. Get over it.

Go Clippers.
This isn't carrying over to us cheering for the Clips in the playoffs, so either get over it quick or ignore me in there.