Seth Vigdor
Late Wednesday night, news broke that Sixers general manager, Sam Hinkie, had resigned. The team released their official statement shortly thereafter. We knew that ESPN had obtained the 13-page resignation letter from Hinkie, but it wasn’t made publicly available until hours later. It’s clear that the heat was on him and upper Sixers management were looking for a new structure for the team. With that, rather than be pushed out, Hinkie walked away from the job.
ESPN published the 13-page resignation letter, of which you can read and download here. In the letter, Hinkie gives insight into what went down behind the scenes. He sounds like a man defeated, almost feeling betrayed that the organization that bought into his plan couldn’t even last three years. Was it the the team’s record? The fact they were the laughingstock of the league, even though everyone understood this would happen?
A 13-page resignation letter can only mean Hinkie’s had some pent up frustration with the organization that had pent up frustration with him. It looked like it was all eventually going to work out. Next season was supposed to be the beginning of the turnaround. Now, we’re left with more questions.
One passage of Hinkie’s letter read:
What I hope to accomplish here is to give you insight into what has transpired behind the scenes in ways you might not have otherwise heard about. Many of you attended our most recent board meeting in New York, where many of these topics were addressed. But for all twelve of you, I hope that this provides a deeper look into what you have at your organization. Accordingly, you should anticipate some mild cheerleading [of others] sprinkled with a healthy dose of self-flagellation about things I’ve done wrong. There has been much criticism of our approach. There will be more. A competitive league like the NBA necessitates a zig while our competitors comfortably zag. We often chose not to defend ourselves against much of the criticism, largely in an effort to stay true to the ideal of having the longest view in the room.”
Meanwhile, Deadspin provided some excerpts from the letter.
Page 2
You can be wrong for the right reasons. This may well prove to be Joel Embiid.”
Page 4
Jeff Bezos says that if Amazon has a good quarter it’s because of work they did 3, 4, 5 years ago—not because they did a good job that quarter. Today’s league-leading Golden State Warriors acquired Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut, and Klay Thompson almost 4 years ago, nearly 4 years ago exactly, and almost 5 years ago. In this league, the long view picks at the lock of mediocrity.”
Page 11
In the upcoming May draft lottery, we have what will likely be the best ever odds to get the #1 overall pick (nearly 30%), a roughly 50/50 chance at a top-2 pick (the highest ever), and a roughly 50/50 chance at two top-5 picks, which would be the best lottery night haul ever. That same bounce of a ping pong ball (almost a flip of a coin) will determine if we have three first round picks this year (unusual) or four (unprecedented). That’s this year. Or this quarter, if you will.”
“If you were to estimate the value of those firsts and the ones to follow, from this point forward we have essentially two NBA teams’ worth of first round pick value plus the third most second round picks in the league.”
Page 12
Your club is on solid footing now, with much hard work yet to be done. As we continued to invest in young players, acquire more draft selections, and maintain cap flexibility the forward-looking markets took notice. Our Future Franchise Rankings (ESPN’s) that began at 24th in a 30-team league in May of 2013 climbed to 19th in 2014, 17th in 2015, and most recently via RealGM’s rankings in December of 2015, 12th. I think that is imminently reasonable, as is a couple of spots higher.”
Hinkie has lost total faith in the organization, and I can’t blame him:
Given all the changes to our organization, I no longer have the confidence that I can make good decisions on behalf of investors in the Sixers — you. So I should step down. And I have.”
I find this ending very fascinating. We all had a feeling that Hinkie’s tenure with the Sixers would end sooner than later once Jerry Colangelo was brought in. However, for as much as Hinkie has been mocked, isn’t he leaving us in good shape with a top pick in the upcoming draft, Okafor, Embiid, Noel, Saric and plenty of other draft picks, along with a wealth of cap space? The Sixers will have plenty of options on the table thanks to him.
The next question is what happens to Brett Brown? Brown has busted his ass coaching a team lacking premier talent. When Colangelo brought in Mike D’Antoni, I just had a feeling that some way, somehow, D’Antoni was brought in for a reason other than what has been stated. If I was a betting man, I’d say Brown is out at some point in the near future and D’Antoni will be your next Sixers head coach.
Throughout the entire Process, the team preached being up front and transparent in their plan. They stressed patience from the fans with the hope of being an annual elite team in this league. It’s a shame the ownership group threw all those things away with the hiring of BC(what a shady coup) and not having the stones to really see this thing through.
Nothing worse than an ownership group asking us to Trust The Process that they don’t even either believe in or trust themselves. Disgraceful.