The Process is far from over for Sixers | Sam Donnellon
Sam Hinkie is no longer the teams GM, but the Process he started lives on
"You think he's gone? He's not gone! That's the whole point! He's never gone!"
- Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) in the 1991 motion picture, "What About Bob?" (Bill Murray)
T HERE WAS A lot of talk leading up to this year's NBA draft about "The Process" finally coming to an end. And I'm not sure why. Joel Embiid played one hell of an exciting half of a season before injuring himself again. Ben Simmons missed the whole season. Dario Saric, whose endless string of competitive basketball made him the most likely candidate to poop out or flame out, instead became an incredible example of a basketball iron man, finishing the season as strong as he began.
And his reward? People are speculating that he will make a nice sixth man next season . . . When all those other guys are playing and the latest exciting draft pick is playing. When you've added that key veteran or two into the mix by trading some of your surplus bodies (Jahlil Okafor) and/or surplus picks.
Did someone say picks? More picks? Future picks? Like in 2018, or 2019, or maybe even, 2020?
You think it's over?
That's the whole point.
It's never over.
And that's a good thing. That's the other thing I don't get. People equate the Process with losing basketball, but the exact opposite is true. The Process, in its theoretical form, is about winning basketball, about winning for a long stretch of time, not a blip in time. The idea that because the Sixers are on the verge of winning more than they lose, of becoming, in latest general manager Bryan Colangelo's words "a power in the East," the Process will and should end, is absurd.
I get it. The whole thing, the losing, losing, losing to get to elite - it's getting old. The internet cult that it has created - and that's what it is - is understandably grating to people who like to go watch games in which their team has a chance to win. But the theory hasn't been disproven as much as it's been delayed. Far from broken, the Process has some built-in firewalls that have avoided a crash.
Despite misfires on picks, injuries that have delayed development, etc., the Sixers are likely to open camp with four players who not only could, but should become All-Stars at some point. They have struck a few diamonds in the rough in role folks such as Richaun Holmes and T.J. McConnell.
And they have picks coming. And coming.
We all know the headlines. The Sixers will have the Lakers' unprotected first-round pick, as well as their own. The following year, in 2019, there is the unprotected pick of the Sacramento Kings, who appear on the brink of a rebuild as daunting as the one Sam Hinkie faced when he was hired in May 2013. And there are a countless array of picks between now and 2019 that, if handled deftly, his successor could extend the effects of Hinkie's three-season stewardship right into the next decade.
It's mind-boggling, really. And it's a reminder why he scared those running the league, the way a card counter scares a Vegas casino owner. The difference, of course, is that it is hard to detect a good card counter. Hinkie's honesty embarrassed a league that's big on appearance.
Probability and statistics, he said. Accumulate enough picks, enough "assets," and you may be able to insulate your team from unfortunate injury, misfired picks, even head-scratching trades. Nobody's moaned about MCW for a while now. But at one time . . .
The happiest man in the building Tuesday night was Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck. In 2013, the Celtics shipped off the core of an aging team that had won an NBA championship to Brooklyn for a slew of assets, the most intriguing being three No. 1 picks for the next three even-year drafts, and the opportunity to flip picks with the Nets in 2017. Not surprising, Boston's rebuild was accelerated, and the focus on their "tank" muted.
It was hard to watch, the rich getting richer Tuesday night. Until you realized that very well could be your owner two years from now, when the unprotected first-round pick acquired from the Kings - a team in as much of a long-term mess as the Nets - becomes another big piece of a Process that has no shot clock. With the Lakers in early rebuild, there will likely be another 3,000-strong party at Xfinity Live for that pick, and another one in 2019.
And, yes, that Hinkie banner will get raised again.
You think he's gone?
He's not gone. He's never gone.
Open any portal to the Sixers future, and you will find Sam Hinkie standing there, as if he never left.
@samdonnellon
Columns: ph.ly/Donnellon