Although there’s a definite bias at play, I’m not going to hide that the Philadelphia Daily News is my second-favorite local sports section. At the same time, I disagree with the consensus they reached last week in a staff agenda piece (a solid format, by the way) entitled, “Was the Sixers’ tanking worth it?”
I like the decision Sam Hinkie made to blow it up and start from scratch two summers ago. For the most part, the DN staff doesn’t. I also think that it’s going to work out in the long run. By and large, the DN staff is far more skeptical. That fundamental difference of opinion is ultimately fine: As far as the Sixers are concerned, the only thing we do know is that we don’t know. Bob Cooney summed up my thoughts on the subject pretty well, even if I do believe the path they’re taking is a worthwhile one:
Was the tanking worth it? It is still just too early too say. The answers need to come sooner rather than later, and if the team stands pat at No. 3 next month and chooses a player and makes him a cornerstone of the franchise, then it is sooner. If the pick is dangled and players are moved and more assets are corralled, then The Process takes another step toward the future. The answer right now is, there is no answer.
While I’m not necessarily sure all of the answers need to be provided so soon, the Sixers have to take advantage of what appears to be a fairly deep pool of players at the top of June’s draft. No argument there. Moving on, Dave Murphy focused on the decision to tank in terms of ticket sales:
Q: If a Bad Instead of Mediocre Season (BIOMS) is worth -55,000 [fans per season], and a Great Instead of Mediocre Season (GIOMS) is worth +150,000, how many GIOMS does it take to make up for three BIOMS?
A: One. It takes the Sixers one great season to earn back the ticket revenue they lose over three bad seasons. So a four-year stretch that goes Bad-Bad-Bad-Good equals one that goes OK-OK-OK-OK.
In my unscientific opinion, the Sixers get the smallest boost in the city from the crowd for simply just making the playoffs. More than the Eagles, Flyers, or Phillies, they have to be a good playoff team in order to really reap the benefits of a raucous building. I also was pleasantly surprised how engaged most of their smaller crowds were this season, so Murph’s math jibes with what I’m seeing. Next up, Marcus Hayes declared this past season a failure:
Last season, they moved backward and didn’t sniff Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker. This year, no Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor, the best assets in the draft market; much better bets than Nerlens Noel or Joel Embiid have shown they can be. The embryonic state of Noel’s and Embiid’s development and their injury history still make them long-term gambles.
The Sixers failed – that’s what it was: failure – to gain possession of the Lakers’ and the Heat’s picks this year, too. They prayed that the Lakers would fall out of the top five, the Heat out of the top 10.
How anything can be so definitive at this point is questionable. We have no idea if Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor (whose defense I am not a fan of, to say the least) are the best players in this draft class. And even if they are, there’s a chance it goes four or five-deep in terms of impact guys, a couple of which Hinkie could have his pick of at number three. The player the Sixers select, not whatever draft slot he was taken in, will determine success or failure.
(We also have no clue if Andrew Wiggins or the similarly injured Jabari Parker are better players than Embiid. If the big man stays healthy, a big ‘if’ admittedly, I kind of doubt it.)
The idea that the Sixers failed because they didn’t land any of the extra picks also seems a bit unfair. For one, it’s not like those bad boys are going anywhere! We need to consider where those picks came from in the first place, too. Simply put, acquiring the Heat pick in exchange for one year of Thaddeus Young was the case of a well-run organization getting something of value from a bad one for pretty close to free. Along those same lines, just because Chris Bosh had a serious health scare out of the blue doesn’t make the season a failure. Depending on how Michael Carter-Williams’ career goes, the Lakers pick is one area where Sam Hinkie has opened himself up to legitimate criticism.
Would it have been great for the Sixers if they landed 6 and 11 this year? Of course. Is The Plan crumbling because they didn’t? Hardly. That’s not to say everything is automatically a success either, because we don’t know. Finally, Dick Jerardi agreed with Hayes:
As a charter member of the club that is convinced the Sixers ``plan’’ is a fraud that is serving only to strip away all its highly-paid assets as the franchise has increased in value by more than 300 percent under the shrewd businessmen that own it and believes the end-game is more likely to be a highly profitable sale than an NBA championship, the 'was the tanking worth it' question is a snapshot into a larger picture that may take a while to come into focus.
Jerardi, whose college hoops and horse racing writing are second to none, isn’t the only person who holds this viewpoint. I think it’s pretty unfair, though. Hinkie and Josh Harris are purposely losing big at first, but that doesn’t mean the two men are uncompetitive. In fact, I would argue their willingness to do so is a testament to their competitiveness.
Hinkie flat-out wouldn’t have left a cushy first lieutenant position in Houston just so he could tank and then be out of a job when the owners sold the team. If you’ll remember, Harris decided to keep the status quo by not hiring Hinkie before the disastrous 2012-13 season in part because he was afraid to mess up the limited playoff success the team had just experienced. Does this look like a guy with almost unprecedented sinister intentions in the sports world? Is he really going to run the Sixers like Montgomery Burns?
As much as you may not like the way they’re going about this (which is fine), it’s pretty clear that the ultimate goal is to win big.
Other Sixers news, notes and analysis from around the web:
Catching up with Sixers draftee Dario Saric: Jorge Sierra, HoopsHype
Here’s a pretty informative interview with Saric, who has picked up his level of play in the Turkish playoffs. When asked about Brett Brown’s European vacation, this was his response:
Yeah, I met him a few weeks ago. We talked a lot about basketball and it was a good thing that he came. The GM Sam Hinkie also visited me in December and we spoke about basketball and everything. It's a great thing that they trust in me and come to support me.
The Sixers Should Consider Making A Move For A Late First Round Pick: Sean O’Connor, Liberty Ballers
I’m of the belief that the major reason K.J. McDaniels is currently collecting splinters in Houston is because he opted out of a team-friendly four-year deal and essentially bet on himself as a rookie. Here, O’Connor makes the argument that trading up into the end of the first round makes some sense considering those contracts are set by the CBA. There’s much less room to maneuver compared to the Wild West nature of the second round. He lays out a hypothetical situation involving Chester product Rondae Hollis-Jefferson:
Instead, let's say RHJ is available at 26 where San Antonio is slated to pick. San Antonio usually doesn't have issues with selecting an international player and stashing them. However, staying at the end of their title window, and with cap space to potentially attract a free agent (on top of re-signing Kawhi Leonard), the Spurs might want to open up some more cap space. Trading 26 for 35, along with maybe 58 or 60, will give the Spurs flexibility and give the Sixers a chance at a prospect that could easily be swiped early in the second round.
In case you missed it at PhillyVoice:
1. I went long on why those aforementioned team-friendly contracts (and second-round picks in general) matter.
2. I also wrote about the seasons submitted by JaKarr Sampson, Jerami Grant, and Robert Covington.
3. MOCK DRAFT.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann