Wrongly labeled, Hinkie is deserving of another job | Bob Cooney

LAS VEGAS – When you spend a week watching summer league basketball, you are surrounded by evaluators. Head coaches sit in the stands, watching their assistant coaches oversee the high draft picks, but also the plethora of hopefuls who are there trying to make names for themselves. The assistant coaches also are being evaluated by the head coaches, while scouts and executives fill the stands, trying to find that diamond in the rough who may be able to help their teams in some capacity.

The week is a blur when it comes to the basketball games — as players are expected to perform at warp speed every second of every minute — and labels are quickly assigned to players.

"He's a decent shooter but can't do much of anything else."

"Defense may be NBA-quality, but there isn't much else to his game."

"He looks good here, but he's too small to play the 'four' spot in the league and that's the only position he's ever played."

With most players, deficiencies stick out like a rain cloud in the desert, so labels are almost certainly accurate. But when you looked around the two host gyms on the campus of the UNLV, you saw one person who is looking for a job, but finding it difficult because he has been labeled — and wrongfully so.

Sam Hinkie looks nothing like the man who ran the Sixers for three seasons, constructing one of the biggest teardowns in sports history. He now sports a shaved head, a fuller face and a tan from his time in the sun in California, which is now home. He was around games much of the week, talking with executives, taking in games, undoubtedly keeping his evaluation skills sharp.

And as you look forward to what might happen with the Sixers this coming season, when Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz take the floor together, you have to wonder why Hinkie is still unemployed.

The New York Knicks got a new general manager Friday when they signed Sacramento Kings executive Scott Perry to a five-year contract. He enters a horrible situation in which he'll have to decide whether to move forward with Carmelo Anthony, tweak the roster to build around Kristaps Porzingis or clean house and start all over.

Hinkie would be able to figure out what to do there. The man is a certified genius. But his name wasn't even brought up when the Knicks were looking to hire someone for the front office after the departure of Phil Jackson as president. Other front offices have had openings, as well, but rarely, if ever, has Hinkie seemed to get consideration.

Why? Because he's been labeled. When many think of Hinkie, they think of three years of insurmountable losing, of his teams being the laughingstock of the league for that time period. For many on the outside looking in, it was tanking at a level never before seen.  They will say that anyone could trade away key players, avoid surrounding a coach with NBA-ready players and accumulate draft picks.

Most in Philly know that it was much, much more than that. Hinkie orchestrated deals that are still helping the organization. This season, they will field one of the more exciting teams in the league and they appear to be just a few seasons away from perhaps contending for something unforeseen in this city in a long, long time.

And yet, the man who orchestrated it all remains jobless.

Hinkie left after the NBA and team owners grew impatient with his patience. Some had grown weary of his social ineptness, which rubbed some co-workers, agents and players the wrong way. His desire to not put a timeline on when his works would come to fruition also played a factor.

But it's easy to see what his labor could possibly produce. The Sixers now aren't just the most exciting team in the city, they are one of the most intriguing in the whole league.

And who's to say Hinkie couldn't do it elsewhere? Perhaps another team will need a total rebuild. Hinkie is certainly qualified in that area. But what if a team just needs a new general manager to move in a different direction? Hinkie, now 39, graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma and earned an MBA from Stanford before joining Daryl Morey in the analytics-driven front office of the Houston Rockets. Who's to say Hinkie couldn't figure out a way to improve an NBA roster without going to the depths he did in Philadelphia?

This is a man who evaluates himself every hour of his life, literally. His is a mind that is far more sophisticated than most others on this planet. Certainly, he is equipped to run an NBA organization again.

He just needs a chance to shed his label.