The Philadelphia 76ers have received a lot of publicity/hype so far this season and there has been much talk that Sam Hinkie's infamous "Process"--which involved many seasons of intentionally losing, with the hope of building a contender by obtaining high draft picks--has paid off. The reality is that the 76ers are currently 15-18, ranking 10th out of 15 Eastern Conference teams. If still being a sub-.500 team after years of losing on purpose is classified as a success then I would hate to see what failure looks like.
It is true that the 76ers have improved. Hinkie took over a 34-48 team that subsequently went 9-63, 18-64 and 1-21 under his command. Since Hinkie's departure, the team has gone 52-123. That .297 winning percentage is nothing to write home about but it is a vast improvement over the .159 winning percentage that the 76ers posted during his reign of error. Now that Bryan Colangelo has been in charge for two and a half seasons, the 76ers have gone from being historically awful to close to mediocre.
However, Hinkie's "Process" had very little to do with the 76ers' improvement. Hinkie "accomplished" two things: (1) he institutionalized a losing culture (which Colangelo is in the process--to borrow a word--of changing) and (2) he built a roster that contained few legitimate NBA players (because Hinkie's goal was to lose). On the final day of the 2015-16 season, the 76ers' active roster consisted of Robert Covington, Jerami Grant, Ish Smith, Kendall Marshall, Nerlens Noel, Hollis Thompson, T.J. McConnell, Richaun Holmes, Isaiah Cannon, Elton Brand, Christian Wood and Carl Landry. The 76ers' current roster--the one that is not awful and has posted a close to mediocre record--consists of Joel Embiid, Robert Covington, Justin Anderson, Richaun Holmes, Ben Simmons, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Trevor Booker, Dario Saric, Jerryd Bayless, T.J. McConnell, Furkan Korkmaz, Amir Johnson, J.J. Redick and Markelle Fultz (plus two-way players Jacob Pullen and James Michael McAdoo). So, only three players remain from Hinkie's last season; of those three players, Covington is a starter, McConnell is the seventh player in the rotation and Holmes ranks 11th in minutes played per game. Of course, Embiid--who has been an injury-plagued player during his brief career--was selected by Hinkie in the 2014 NBA Draft but he has only played in 56 games in three and a half seasons; he currently leads the team in scoring (23.8 ppg) and rebounding (11.1 rpg) but he operates under a minutes restriction and it is not clear if he will ever be a full-time, healthy player.
So, the sum product of Hinkie's "Process" is the injury-prone Embiid, one other starter, a rotation player and a guy who rarely sees action. If Hinkie had not been relieved of his duties, the 76ers would have an almost completely different looking roster, they still would have a losing attitude and they would not have even ascended to mediocre status.
What about Ben Simmons? Indeed, what about him? He was the consensus best player in the draft, Colangelo took him and it looks like he will be the Rookie of the Year. Intentionally losing games for years at a time--with no relief in sight until Hinkie was fired--just to obtain a 25% chance of getting the number one draft pick with the hope that Simmons or a player of his caliber would be available is not a sound franchise-building strategy. If Simmons becomes a great player, then Colangelo deserves credit for drafting him and--most importantly--for placing him in a culture that breeds success instead of failure. It is far from certain that, even if Hinkie had drafted Simmons, the 76ers under Hinkie would have placed Simmons in the best possible environment to succeed.
Well-run franchises are not built by tanking and they are able to stay at or near the top of the standings year after year without having top picks in the Draft. Look at the San Antonio Spurs or, broadening our view to other sports, look at the New England Patriots. It is not necessary to tear down a roster and/or lose intentionally in order to build a winner.
The 76ers are not even a playoff team as of today, so they are not worthy of much discussion--but if they are going to be discussed and if any credit is going to be given for the team's improvement, then the discussion should focus on the fine job that Colangelo has done of fixing the mess that Hinkie created.
The "Process" is Overhyped
