Incipio wrote:bran muffin wrote:I've said this before, and I'll say it again.
Tanking for picks does NOT make a GM "good". Every single GM out there would tank for picks if their owner allowed it. But most owners forbid that, for business reasons. The only thing that made Sam Hinkie's situation unique is that his owner allowed it.
People who want to credit the 76ers for their tank job should thank that team's owner, not Hinkie. It doesn't take a genius to unload players and get a high lottery pick. It really doesn't.
Tanking, in itself, does not make a GM any good. Billy King would've tanked too, if Prokhorov allowed it. Donnie Nelson would've tanked, if Mark Cuban allowed it. Phil Jackson would've tanked many years, if Dolan allowed it. The only way to judge a GM is his ability to turn draft picks into good players. And Sam Hinkie hasn't proven he was capable of doing that consistently. He tanked so many years, and yet the 76ers are still languishing at the bottom of the standings. That's not a good thing.
Seriously, I don't see how blatantly tanking for years makes a GM good. Every GM knows tanking is the easiest way to rebuild but it defeats the competitive spirit especially when you're blatantly doing it year after year. It's equivalent to Durant going to the warriors to try to win a championship. They're taking the easy way out.
For all the "tanking" the 76ers have done... they've still gotten just as much from trading:
2019 - (Top 3 pick?) - Traded from Sacramento for cap space
2018 - Unprotected 1st round pick from Lakers if 2017 top 3 draft pick is not realised.
2017 - (Potential top 4-6 pick if Lakers lottery ball drops outside the top 3)
2017 - (Potential top 5 pick if Sacramento bottom out and finish below Sixers)
2016 - #1 Simmons (Injured hasn't played a game yet)
2015 - #3 Okafor (Hasn't panned out... gets more DNP's than plays)
2015 - Nik Stauskas traded from Sacramento for cap space
2014 - #3 Embiid (Injured first 2 years)
2014 - #10 (Received from Pelicans for Jrue Holiday) - Traded down to pick 12 which became Dario Saric
2013 - Nerlens Noel (Received from Pelicans for Jrue Holiday)
So "tanking" might have gotten them decent draft picks in Embiid and Simmons but bad luck with injuries had just as much to do with... and both Milwaukee and Cleveland had a chance to get Embiid and chose not to. Okafor? meh can't win them all but he still may net us a late 1st rounder.
The genius though wasn't just in the tanking... but in the trades and in the draft picks. It's gotten us Noel and Stauskas so far... and an additional 2 x top 5 draft picks in the next 3 drafts if everything goes according to script.
What Hinkie did brilliantly is he took players regardless whether they were injured or not and not ready to play straight away or in Saric's case had a European contract to honour for a few years. The intention all along was to have the team come together in 2016/2017 and then some additional draft picks after that to use to get who you need to build a championship team. Absolutely brilliant.