Sixers CEO defends a rebuild whose payoff is far in the future
Scott O'Neil was sitting to Andy MacPhail's left Tuesday morning, the two of them taking part in a panel discussion at Lincoln Financial Field sponsored by the Rothman Institute, and the words and phrases coming from MacPhail's mouth had to sound so familiar to O'Neil.
Scott O'Neil was sitting to Andy MacPhail's left Tuesday morning, the two of them taking part in a panel discussion at Lincoln Financial Field sponsored by the Rothman Institute, and the words and phrases coming from MacPhail's mouth had to sound so familiar to O'Neil.
As the Phillies' new team president, MacPhail has been charged with shepherding them through what promises to be a lengthy rebuild, and if you closed your eyes and listened to what he told the panel's attendees, you'd have thought you were hearing a replay of the 76ers' mantra under general manager Sam Hinkie and O'Neil, their CEO. MacPhail revealed, for instance, that the Phillies will cut payroll next season - no surprise there - but have already begun reinvesting that money in player development, analytics, and technology. There were "no shortcuts," he said.
These were the same terms and tactics that the 76ers have repeated for three years now, and after the panel's session ended, O'Neil couldn't contain his frustration with those suggesting that the Sixers are behind schedule in their rebuild. There are two cornerstones in Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel. There are two NBA-caliber shooters in Nick Stauskas and Robert Covington. There is a potential franchise player in Joel Embiid. There is Dario Saric, who has said he plans to join the Sixers next season. There is the possibility, even the likelihood, that the Sixers will have four first-round picks in next year's draft. There's the state-of-the-art practice facility scheduled to open next fall in Camden.
"I want to scream, like, 'Are you guys kidding me?' " O'Neil said. "I would scream it. When people say, 'You're set back. You're too slow,' I'm like, 'Have you guys lost your [expletive] minds?' Like, seriously, this is it."
If coach Brett Brown has given raspy, anguished public voice to the contradiction cutting to the core of the Sixers' plan - as the losses pile up, how long can you keep faith in a plan offering no immediate hope? - O'Neil has been the sunny, true-believing counterbalance. It is his job to look past the 19 victories in 2013-14, the 18 victories in 2014-15, the 0-7 start this season, the 26-game losing streak, the two 17-game losing streaks, and find the glimmer of something good. He does the interviews, ducks and deflects the bullets on the sports-talk shows, delivers the organization's message with a zeal and frequency that Hinkie refuses to.
The team's fans, of course, have no such burden or obligation. Many of them have been patient with and accepting of the Sixers' methods and the logic behind them, but they're allowed to get angry or exasperated when the process seems to veer off course. It's to be expected.
They grow attached to players, such as Thaddeus Young or Michael Carter-Williams, whom the Sixers then trade away for future assets. They watch the video of Embiid that the Sixers posted online last season - the one in which he dribbles a basketball, slips the ball from one hand to the other between his legs, then dunks it - and marvel over his precious potential. In turn, they're crushed when it turns out Embiid has to have another surgery on his right foot and sit out another season, and it's understandable for them to feel that the franchise's hyping of Embiid was nothing more than a tease, a promise the Sixers should have known they might not be able to keep. This is natural, all of it.
Yet O'Neil and the Sixers still have a product to sell, and so . . .
"I don't know what it's like in other markets, but this market, it's a show-me market," O'Neil said. "So I don't think you can overhype. . . .
"I mean, I'm not trying to mince words, but what's certain and sure? I can tell you what's certain and sure. Okafor is a monster. That's for sure, right? Okafor's healthy today. That's for sure, right? I don't know what's sure tomorrow."
But there are ways to build marketing campaigns, and there is context. There's a difference between, say, a free-agent signee who has played at least 80 games in each of the previous five seasons and a rookie who - no matter how talented he is and transcendent he may turn out to be - was injured when he was drafted and was always a risk to injure himself again.
"That's fair," O'Neil said. "But if you really look back at what we marketed, like, I mean, much has been written about stuff like the MCW thing - I mean, we have to do our job. I guess there's a balance of how conservative do you want to be, and there's a scale.
"I'm not into bull-. We kind of go with what we think is reasonable, and that time we thought [Embiid] was going to play this year. And it didn't work out. It [stinks]. But we're not, like, two-bit promoters. There's no John Ringling. That's not this organization."
No, the Sixers aren't a circus. They've been taking risks, some more calculated than others, and living with the costs, and their course of action has required a remarkable amount of collective courage. But those costs are real, and the Sixers' future remains unknowable and still so deep in the distance, and none of Scott O'Neil's fury changes any of that. Show us, guys. Show us soon.
@MikeSielski