The Sam Hinkie Dossier (part 2)

Another method for a GM to accumulate players is through waivers. If a GM's job is to find underrated players that other teams are missing out on, well, that what's the waiver wire is. So did Hinkie sneak overlooked talent away from the rest of the league?

Hinkie made 5 waiver claims: 2014 (Chris Johnson), 2015 (Thomas Robinson, Glen Robinson Jr, Ish Smith), 2016 (Sonny Weems). All 5 were released. All 5 are still in the NBA (though Weems is rumored to be on his way to Israel) and Smith last year even returned to the Sixers (though only after Bryan Colangelo was brought in as an 'adviser').

I think Ish Smith can be a solid backup PG for a good team in the NBA but I don't see him as the Sixers' PG of the future and apparently Hinkie never did either. Hinkie let Ish leave after the 2014-15 season, only to trade two 2nd round picks to bring him back after it was clear Tony Wroten wasn't going to work out. If we acknowledge that Ish is underappreciated and was a nice pickup for the Sixers, then we'd also have to acknowledge that Hinkie didn't keep him even though he was very affordable, choosing to rely on Wroten instead. Or we could go conspiracy theory Hinkie here: Ish was too good for the Sixers and Hinkie wanted one more shot at the #1 pick. I dunno, which version do you prefer? Was Hinkie an idiot for letting Ish go or was he a mad genius for letting him go? In the end, he got both: Ish came back and the Sixers still got the #1 pick.

I personally still believe Thomas Robinson can be a decent low price contributor but Hinkie let him go too. But Johnson, Robinson Jr and Weems are just practice players, bottom of the roster guys who will snag minutes in garbage time or in case of injuries but aren't meaningful contributors for any team.

Hinkie didn't show any great proficiency at the waiver wire portion of the GM position or at least he doesn't have any great successes to trumpet. Now this isn't a terribly damning of his performance, the sheer amount of talent available on the NBA waiver wire isn't going to be enormous and, off the top of my head, I can't recall any brilliant waiver wire moves over the last few years. But there are, one hopes, diamonds in the rough out there and the waiver wire is the place to find them. I like that he took a chance on Ish Smith and on Thomas Robinson and while Smith played pretty good for the Sixers, you can't say that Hinkie got the better of his peers in this area. Not much of a minus but not a real plus either.