Heej wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Heej wrote:LETS GOOOOO CP3!!! Murray or Mitchell def knocking Russ out next year. But lol imagine having Gobert over Embiid
I haven't through, but I have to say, the 76ers were a trainwreck this year culturally so it's really not weird to me that people were out on him.
As I say that;
I could have said the same thing about Gobert for anyone bothered by his COVID performance (his best passing of the year). Fine to say that that's not fair, just wouldn't be surprised.
I also get people saying it's weird for Simmons to get the nod over Embiid. Clearly they were in different positions. I'd have been fine with both missing All-NBA.
Haha I'd say out of all the organization vs star player dysfunction delineations I'll have to give the nod to the Sixers organization in general just having weird energy about them. Some of the moves they made just seemed panicky and nonsensical and there's gotta be some lingering stench of all the embarrassing tanking culture of this decade. I've heard that alluded to by Zach Lowe on his podcast when he talks about what he's heard from sixers staff.
There's truth in that, and it's a fascinating thing.
On one level, I think it's clear that the big sin of the 76er organization was to tell Hinkie he could do his Process and then cut him off half way. While you have to expect you're not going to let it go on indefinitely, somebody should have been there to say "Listen, we still don't know what Embiid is. If he becomes a star after you fire Hinkie, you're probably going to make him hate you and at the very least, he's not going to respect you. Unless you're willing to trade Embiid right now, you should stay the course." And of course given how it turned out, that would have meant sticking with Hinkie. Ownership along with the NBA itself and the Colangelos deserve a lot of blame here and that's before you get into the foolishness of hiring Brand as GM.
But it has to be said that the way the team focused on talent over fit made the players feel pit against each other, which could not have been good for culture. It all makes sense from "We're going to find out who is really the best and build around them", but even great talents need to learn to be team players, and I think that with the guy who was best in Embiid, he particularly needed that. But of course, if you were going to focus on building team chemistry, then the fact that Embiid wasn't the first big you got means you probably don't draft him.
What it all amounts to is that the Hinkie Process wasn't necessarily a bad strategy, but it was playing with fire, and while others deserve blame, it seems pretty clear that Hinkie was tone deaf to the negative effects of the meat grinder he was effectively putting players through. If you're going to do a Process, you have to have someone captaining the ship who has EQ, and Hinkie seemed to be lacking there, to say nothing of the fact that he didn't seem to have a sense for how to synergize player talents the way, say, a Danny Ainge does.