Q&A with Sixers' Sam Hinkie

ORLANDO - There has been quite a lot that 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie has been juggling of late, with last month's draft to free agency to his team participating in two summer leagues. Yesterday the Daily News had a chance to sit down with the overseer of everything Sixers. The conversation ranged from the debut of Nerlens Noel in the Orlando Pro Summer League to what free agency may yield.

Question: Your thoughts on Nerlens Noel's debut?

Answer: He's been going live in our gym for a while, so I think it's our fans who got to see something that we've gotten to see quite a bit of. I was mostly happy for him. I think he was nervous and wanting to perform and itching to play well and itching to remind people of just how good a player he is. So I think he was itching to remind people just how good a player he is, so I was happy for him that he sort of came out and had success because I think that's good for him.

Q: Is he a better player than you thought he was, or about the same player you thought he was?

A: I had pretty high expectations. I liked him a lot in the draft and I like him a lot now. His gifts are unusual. Like all young players he has a long way to go but his gifts are unusual - he's got remarkably quick hands, he's got great bounce, he's a natural rim protector, he's a great teammate, he's got the ability to run the floor consistently, he's got the ability to really help on the glass. Those things are all hard to find.

Q: With taking Joel Embiid (sidelined probably for year) and Dario Saric (at least 2 more years in Turkey) do you look at Brett Brown at some point and maybe apologize?

A: I think Brett and I have been in lockstep so far. We really have. Behind closed doors he and I talk a lot about our program, and where it needs to build and where to find value in the kinds of decisions that are easy and the kinds of decisions that are hard, and really what the end in mind is. We talk about that a lot. I try to talk about it with lots and lots and lots of humility because we've got a long way to go. But it's important that we don't take our eye off what it is we are trying to do and how to get there. We have all sorts of pressures all the time - that voice on your shoulder, the frustration that crops up. We want to do what's best for the future.

Q: You talk about hits and misses a lot, so with all the moves you've made in your 14 months as general manager, what's the ratio of hits and misses?

A: We've done some things that I'm proud of, although fair to say all are small to medium, I think. We focus on what we can control. We've certainly had misses, thankfully mostly small ones to date. We talk a lot internally about that decision that we could have made differently. I hope to have the chance to correct them, so I don't know that I'd say many of them out loud, but we talk a lot about things we'd do differently if we had the chance to do it again. I don't know how you improve unless you're open with yourself about that and with each other about that. We'll make plenty of mistakes. There's plenty of art remaining to what we do. I'm under no illusions that we'll bat a thousand.

Q: So much has been said of you not talking. The fans seem to be mostly on board with what you are doing. Does that matter to you?

A: I think Sixers fans want a winner. That's been clear from the beginning and that's one of things that attracted me to the job, that we had a tradition and legend after legend that have played there in a big market and a basketball city where basketball really mattered with a really committed fan base and a really serious and committed ownership group. You felt like if you could build something you could have wind in your sails. I never viewed the passion of our fans as nothing but a big positive, in the long run. I've been pleasantly surprised thus far with how committed our fans are to those sorts of goals.

Q: Is this a tough sell to other people in the organization, like ticket sales people and other people who could be in jeopardy of losing jobs because there aren't fans in the stands?

A: I talk to those people and we try to be really helpful and Scott O'Neil and I are close and talk a lot about the things happening with our team the things happening with our business folks and all of those matters. But we talk more about what really matters and what has lasting value and how to really get where we want to go. We talk about all the other things, too. But when you really weigh it up at the end of the day you have to figure out what weight to put on various things, and at the end of the day we keep asking ourselves the same question: 'What will give us our best chance to get where we want to go as fast as we can.'

Q: How hard did you make a run at LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony and what might free agency mean to this team?

A: We're not one to talk about our plans publicly, but we've had lots and lots of discussions. Maybe not as many that have been reported, but that's OK. We're in a position to help teams. We know what our goals are and it turns out that we're in a position to help a lot of teams to achieve their goals. That maximizes our chances of achieving our own by having a deal one way or the other. We have lots and lots of flexibility and that will bring us lots of options and I think the best decisions come from a wide set of options. We don't claim to predict to know exactly how that will unfold, we just know we have a chance to be a participant in that market and this is the time to do it.