GAME 40: Clippers (25-14) @ Pelicans (16-22)—NOTE TIME: Sunday 6PM PDT on ESPN

[TheNewEra]

This team needs to play angry tomorrow vs the Mavs not only because we got smashed tonight but because the Mavs gave them that 50 point loss a few points back. With how we have been playing lately I'll be happy if we get a top 4 seed.

True

[TheNewEra]

That was brutal but we can come right back and get the next one. Don’t think we will get home court in the second round this way

Second round? This team will be lucky to get past the first round.

Some growing pains but we can get better. I won’t be as confident they can if they don’t fix things

[MartinToVaught]

Read on Twitter

[esqtvd]

Hinkie generated assets from assets, but he was working with bottom of the league teams where there’s a TON more leeway in trading off players and shuffling around the roster. Championship teams don’t do what Hinkie was doing, and if Hinkie stayed while Philly started contending he wouldn’t have been doing the same thing.

Anyways, sure, the team needs more assets, but saying that the team doesn’t care about winning because they don’t fire their “entire” front office mid-season is obviously ridiculous, only a stupid team would do something like that.

Philadelphia HATES Hinkie--3 solid years of misery, embarrassment and disgrace. Jim Buss's Lakers tried the same despicable thing and ended up only with the assets to get AD--which would mean nothing if King James hadn't decided to grace Jeanie and LA with his presence.

Yeah 'The Process' in Philly was trash to me simply because Hinkie didn't really have an endgame. He would still be tanking til this very day if the league didn't step in and relieve him of his duties.

There Will Never Be Another Process, or a GM Job for Sam Hinkie
RIC BUCHER
FEBRUARY 20, 2018

...Other NBA executives, however, were more than happy to share their thoughts about Hinkie's work with the 76ers and whether it should be judged a success. A number of them huddled while scouting the Phil Knight Invitational in Portland, Oregon, in November to debate the pros and cons of what Hinkie wrought.

While the views varied, they agreed on one thing: The health of Joel Embiid, the transcendent big man and first and only All-Star produced by Hinkie's hoarding of both Ls and draft picks, is critical to The Process reaching The Fulfillment.

"I have respect for what he did because he had a plan and he stuck with it," said one Western Conference GM who spoke favorably of Hinkie. "It took balls to do what he did. I do [view what he did as a success.] But if they hadn't drafted Embiid, the experiment would've been a colossal failure. Look at their record when he's out. If Embiid can't stay healthy, they'll be horrible."


The essence of Hinkie's strategy was simple: acquire as many lottery picks as possible, by whatever means necessary, to take multiple shots at drafting superstars. With the NBA draft lottery designed to reward the worst teams with the highest odds, Hinkie unapologetically assembled teams built to lose and retained salary-cap space to make the 76ers a welcome trade partner for teams looking to dump onerous contracts. That provided him the wherewithal to exact a price from cap-squeezed teams hoping to utilize the Sixers and their vast cap room as a third trade partner to complete a deal: a future first-round pick or, if nothing else, the option of swapping places in the draft.

All of the losing—Hinkie-built teams went 47-199 over three seasons—and maneuvering (27 trades) resulted in five lottery picks which Hinkie used and at least two more (2016 and 2017 No. 1 picks Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz) whose acquisition can be attributed to his wheeling and dealing.

A surprisingly vocal contingent of 76ers fans not only tolerated the abject losing, but they embraced it as the secret passage to an NBA championship, something Philadelphia had last enjoyed 30 years before Hinkie's hiring.

An equally vocal contingent among owners, however, began making their feelings known to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver that the Sixers' blatant tanking was hurting their collective take at the turnstiles. The 76ers went from 18th in the league in overall average attendance in 2012-13 to 29th in 2013-14, 30th in 2014-15 and 28th in 2015-16.

"They didn't have to be that bad," one owner said. "It was just over the top. It was a disservice to their players. They weren't given a chance to be any good. Their owners said to me, 'We didn't have to be that bad.'"

The NBA apparently told the 76ers to tone down their unbridled effort to lose.

"The league office told them multiple times, 'It's too much,'" a second Western Conference GM said. "Sam didn't come up with anything original. People have been [tanking] for years. They just didn't go to the extremes Sam did. The league doesn't care if you win 22 games; they just don't want you winning 15. It's optics. He rubbed everybody's nose in it to the point the league had to do something."

While Sixers principal owner Josh Harris signed off on Hinkie's grand experiment at first, league sources say he bowed to the pressure from the NBA office and hired former Phoenix Suns owner and GM Jerry Colangelo as chairman of basketball operations in December 2015. Hinkie resigned four months later, submitting a 13-page letter of resignation to the team's 12 equity partners. It quoted investor Warren Buffet and physicist Max Planck and referenced both a 10,000 Year Clock and a 400-pound New Zealand flightless bird known as a moa.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2759830-there-will-never-be-another-process-or-a-gm-job-for-sam-hinkie

[TheNewEra]

Everybody says we need a pg but man give me a goon in the paint that can rebound. Even if his offense is subpar we need a dude that can have somebody think twice before coming into the paint. I don't believe I saw one contested shot in the paint tonight. It was a f*ckin' layup line

heh you beat me by 30 seconds lol

We had a block and multiple plays blown up that led to dump off passes and or no one helping the helper. We just don’t rotate fast enough or clean up the play when we do. Prime Dwight isn’t stopping this much bad defense and when we did rotate Reggie got dunked on

Look at these weak help. We trap and Lou barely touches Jax and Reggie is so small he can’t stop the ball

Watch on YouTube

[TheNewEra]

We will be better and we will win it all

[TheNewEra]

Lue summed it up

Read on Twitter

?s=21

[Roscoe Sheed]

It is very worrisome how poor the Clippers defense has looked most of the season. Something is wrong with the personnel and/or strategies. Not sure what the solution is- however, Lue has the right idea in that it starts with one-on-one defense. The drop coverage on screen roll action also gives up way too many easy points

[esqtvd]

Everybody says we need a pg but man give me a goon in the paint that can rebound. Even if his offense is subpar we need a dude that can have somebody think twice before coming into the paint. I don't believe I saw one contested shot in the paint tonight. It was a f*ckin' layup line

heh you beat me by 30 seconds lol

We had a block and multiple plays blown up that led to dump off passes and or no one helping the helper. We just don’t rotate fast enough or clean up the play when we do. Prime Dwight isn’t stopping this much bad defense and when we did rotate Reggie got dunked on

Look at these weak help. We trap and Lou barely touches Jax and Reggie is so small he can’t stop the ball

Watch on YouTube

As previously noted, we miss Beverley's maniacal pressure on the ball, but we cannot put defending the paint on our point guards.

[MartinRiggs]

Wow,this is so bad. Getting crushed by Pelicans.

135 pts,72 in the paint? Even Brooklyn plays some defense...

[Young Sterling]

Trade Paul George for a disgruntled superstar + KEY role players in a multi team trade, our ONLY solution. We can't trade our role players because of cap flexibility, salary, blah blah. But if we trade PG13 in a multi team trade, we can attach Zubac and Pat Bev's salary along with guys like Fi for dumping/clearing purposes. PG is booty, and we need to go after a Whiteside/McGee type player along with a superstar like Westbrook/Beal/ Even Oladipo or Jerami Grant + Role players would be better than Paul George.

Paul George is our greatest asset. Time to flip him in a multi team trade for 1 superstar and like 2 key role players (Thad Young, Rubio, Sato)

[RingColluder]

Paul George is horrible.

Zubac is awful.

Same old same old. Another loss tomorrow, a first round exit coming.

Bev injured, Ibaka injured, .. we're done.

[TheNewEra]

heh you beat me by 30 seconds lol

We had a block and multiple plays blown up that led to dump off passes and or no one helping the helper. We just don’t rotate fast enough or clean up the play when we do. Prime Dwight isn’t stopping this much bad defense and when we did rotate Reggie got dunked on

Look at these weak help. We trap and Lou barely touches Jax and Reggie is so small he can’t stop the ball

Watch on YouTube

As previously noted, we miss Beverley's maniacal pressure on the ball, but we cannot put defending the paint on our point guards.

Dribble penetration that comes that easily absolutely can be put on the guards. The opposing teams are not running some amazing sets and constantly getting cutters on the move. This team is allowing guys to constantly take them off the dribble with little to no effort to get back into the play and compete to contest.

Lue said it after the game they don’t play one on one defense. You can see the players just getting beat over and over and someone has to help

[TheNewEra]

Paul George is horrible.

Zubac is awful.

Same old same old. Another loss tomorrow, a first round exit coming.

Bev injured, Ibaka injured, .. we're done.

The mtv counter guy lol

[TheNewEra]

Trade Paul George for a disgruntled superstar + KEY role players in a multi team trade, our ONLY solution. We can't trade our role players because of cap flexibility, salary, blah blah. But if we trade PG13 in a multi team trade, we can attach Zubac and Pat Bev's salary along with guys like Fi for dumping/clearing purposes. PG is booty, and we need to go after a Whiteside/McGee type player along with a superstar like Westbrook/Beal/ Even Oladipo or Jerami Grant + Role players would be better than Paul George.

Paul George is our greatest asset. Time to flip him in a multi team trade for 1 superstar and like 2 key role players (Thad Young, Rubio, Sato)

That would be the worse outcome and you can’t even trade George even though we shouldn’t he’s a star.McGee and Whiteside got played off the floor in the playoffs I don’t see how they help.

We need to improve defensively but don’t gut the team. For no other reason you don’t want to lose star power and still have a bunch of injury prone guys

[Captain Ballmer]

We had a block and multiple plays blown up that led to dump off passes and or no one helping the helper. We just don’t rotate fast enough or clean up the play when we do. Prime Dwight isn’t stopping this much bad defense and when we did rotate Reggie got dunked on

Look at these weak help. We trap and Lou barely touches Jax and Reggie is so small he can’t stop the ball

Watch on YouTube

As previously noted, we miss Beverley's maniacal pressure on the ball, but we cannot put defending the paint on our point guards.

Dribble penetration that comes that easily absolutely can be put on the guards. The opposing teams are not running some amazing sets and constantly getting cutters on the move. This team is allowing guys to constantly take them off the dribble with little to no effort to get back into the play and compete to contest.

Lue said it after the game they don’t play one on one defense. You can see the players just getting beat over and over and someone has to help

They played one on one defense against Curry last game. PG-Morris-Bev all did their part and it was awasome. They just didn't play against one of the freakish, young, intimidating and physical frontcourt of the nba.(Adams-Hayes-Zion-İngram) When you have a lot of Veterans in your roster this happens, they tend to pick their fights. We just need some youth to balance our roster.

[madmaxmedia]

I didn't watch the game- any significance at all to Kennard's stat line last night?

Great stat line in 19 minutes, but I assume a lot of garbage time minutes.

[Clemenza]

I didn't watch the game- any significance at all to Kennard's stat line last night?

Great stat line in 19 minutes, but I assume a lot of garbage time minutes.

He got a few meaningful minutes. He's starting to look comfortable on offense finally. Still can't guard anyone though.

[donemilio21]

Memphis beat us bad, I thought we got back on track with that solid win against Warriors but this is a big punch in the gut.

[RingColluder]

Paul George is horrible.

Zubac is awful.

Same old same old. Another loss tomorrow, a first round exit coming.

Bev injured, Ibaka injured, .. we're done.

The mtv counter guy lol

what?