The Sam Hinkie Dossier (part 1)

Now that Sam Hinkie is out of Philly--and perhaps out of the NBA forever--I wanted to go back over his record to measure his successes and failures. Was there a method to his madness? Has he made the Sixers a better franchise? Was the 'Process' a success?

First let's ask the question: what is a GM's job? My answer is that capturing value is the GM's job: getting W's at the most profitable rate is the ideal. Finding talent and chemistry within the limits of one's resources is the balance the GM must strike. Winning in a manner that crushes the team's future is sugary success at best but relying too much on the future at the expense of today is brutal for the fans and the team members alike. We already know that Hinkie didn't win a lot of games in his time with the Sixers. But did he create value for the franchise?

I looked over all of his transactions (well, all the ones I could find) to see if he had an eye for talent or a knack for getting the most value. The methods for accumulating players are drafts, waiver claims, free agency signings and trades. What was Hinkie's record at each of those methods?

Hinkie presided over 3 drafts in his tenure at Philly. In 2013 he drafted Michael Carter-Williams (#11), Glen Rice Jr (#35), Pierre Jackson (#42). MCW took Rookie of the Year (in an albeit soft rookie class); the next year he was traded. Rice was traded on draft day. Pierre Jackson was part of the trade that sent Jrue Holiday to New Orleans and brought Nerlens Noel to Philly. So none of his first three draft picks survived Hinkie's tenure with the team, none were part of Philly's future plans.

Philly had 7 picks in 2014 draft taking Joel Embiid (#3), Elfrid Payton (#10), KJ McDaniels (#32), Jerami Grant (#39), Russ Smith (#47), Vasilije Micic (#52), Nemanja Dangubic (#54). Embiid has yet to make his NBA debut, though he seems ready to appear in 2016-17. Payton was traded on draft day. McDaniels had a fine rookie year for the Sixers but was traded the next year (after demurring on signing long term). Grant has established himself as a decent rotation player, a solid backup on a young team. Smith was traded. Micic has yet to make his NBA debut but the Sixers still hold his rights. Dangubic was traded on draft day. Three of the seven are still available to the Sixers: Grant is not a star but a nice contributor for a 2nd round pick, Embiid is still an unknown though a promising one, Micic may well appear in the NBA one day (or maybe not); the other four were traded.

Philly had 6 picks in the 2015 draft taking Jahlil Okafor (#3), Willy Hernangomez (#35), Richaun Holmes (#37), Arturas Gudaitis (#47), JP Tokoto (#58), Luka Mitrovic (#60). Okafor had a promising rookie season and though trade rumors are swirling, I think they'll keep Okafor and build around him going forward. Hernangomez was traded. Holmes had a nice rookie season (for a 2nd rounder) and looks to at least remain on an NBA roster for a while. Gudaitis was traded. Tokoto was waived before the 2015-16 season. Mitrovic was traded. Two of the six showed potential to keep playing for the Sixers, the other four are already gone.

So let's look back over the draft record. Hinkie made 16 total picks: 3 (Okafor, Grant, Holmes) have played and still on the roster going forward; 2 (Embiid, Micic) have yet to play but are still available to the Sixers; 1 (Tokoto) was waived without ever playing a game; 10 (Carter-Williams, Rice Jr, Jackson, Payton, McDaniels, Smith, Dangubic, Hernangomez, Gudaitis, Mitrovic) were traded.

Let's just look purely at the talent. 1st round picks: Carter-Williams, Embiid, Payton, Okafor. Three of those four guys finished top 5 in ROY voting and not hard to imagine that the 4th guy will, too. Not bad, how many other GMs can say that about their last four 1st round picks?

2nd round picks: Rice Jr., Jackson, McDaniels, Grant, Smith, Micic, Dangubic, Hernangomez, Holmes, Gudaitis, Tokoto, Mitrovic. McDaniels is an exciting athlete, so-so basketball player; Grant and Holmes are decent rotation players; Rice Jr, Smith, and Tokoto are not NBA players; Micic, Dangubic, Hernangomez, Gudaitis and Mitrovic are unknowns; Pierre Jackson could still emerge as a rotation guy in the league. So that's 3/12 rotation guys, 5/12 are foreigners we haven't seen yet and only 1/12 is a clear non-player. 2nd round picks usually don't work out but more than half of Hinkie's twelve 2nd round picks still have a shot at being rotation players. My gut reaction is that's a pretty good record.

In terms of the Sixers franchise, in three drafts Hinkie gave the Sixers one bonafide starter (Okafor), one potential star (Embiid), two decent rotation guys (Grant, Holmes), one foreign unknown (Micic). I would suggest that being able to trade away 10 players for something is (probably) pretty good, a lot of players drafted into the NBA will never return any value for the team that drafted them. (I'll return to Hinkie's trades in a later post)

I'm willing to call this a successful run--and if Embiid becomes a star then it becomes an unimpeachable success. It has yet to look promising because the team has returned so few W's but the GM's job stretches into the future, laying the groundwork for future teams is also among his duties. By gutting the Sixer roster that he inherited and redeeming as many draft picks as possible, Hinkie raised the value of the Sixers' potential returns. The disappointing part of Hinkie's record here is that he has mostly redeemed those future draft picks for future-r draft picks, which is fine for the GM but doesn't really benefit anyone else in the organization (at this point, not even Hinkie!). Hinkie wanted to build around the draft and I'd say he did an above average job. Still time to see how it plays out on the court.