Portrait of an Artist: Sam Hinkie and Revisionist History

Enrico Campitelli recently wrote an article contending that Sam Hinkie might be ruffling feathers in the NBA among the general manager fraternity. Campitelli included another perspective that suggests that players hold him in high regard. Namely, Kyle Lowry, who has the Houston-Hinkie-Philly connection. Lowry played in the Philadelphia Public League, for Villanova University and the Houston Rockets, where Hinkie once worked.

Behind some the Rogue-Hinkie story was highly regarded journalist Bob Ford. He compiled a list of league sources that indicated few trusted or desired to work with Hinkie, who apparently reneged on the Andrei Kirilenko deal. The story is perhaps 100 percent true, but I’m not sure why the Sixers cannot change their minds in the release of a player.

Additionally, Keith Pompey has written about how veterans do not want to play for the Sixers at the moment; with no chance to win in the immediate and nothing to play for except the future of others.

There are three components current to the Hinkie myth and three areas in need of historical revisionism.

Myth No. 1

Hinkie is brazen in his disregard for league norms and backroom dealings. He has started a new trend in tanking.

This cannot be true. The Sixers are one of thirteen teams that are trimming fat in the NBA and not adding payroll. Only five GM’s in the NBA have won an NBA title. The rest are scurrying for the best possible draft status possible. Additionally, twenty-three out of thirty GM’s in the NBA were players and coaches.

Hinkie is not one of the twenty-three but knows the game well. For some reason, this is the root of select Hinkie mistrust, and not his alleged sinister ways. In public, no GM has spoken bad of him. It is an internal sentiment of “figuring the new guy out.”

Myth No. 2

Sam Hinkie has created a new norm with analytics and how this relates to the role of the GM.

This is partially true, but largely overblown. You can go back twenty years to find baseline data, the interview of scouts, NBA General Managers, college coaches, and select members of the media, working together to gauge the “pro-tential” of players to be drafted.

Myth No. 3

GM’s have never tanked before – not quite like this. They were also well behaved, got along and members of the “good ole boy” network. Hinkie is disturbing this history. 

(Recall that Isaiah Thomas took over the expansion Toronto Raptors and horded and stockpiled draft picks and traded shrewdly. But he didn’t invent it either.)

The Hinkie exception is because of his background in research and our current media age. By no means is Hinkie the first, or lone revolutionary smart guy member of the war-room.

Even if history goes unrecorded and under appreciated, it does not mean it did not happen. Back in the mid-90’s, GM Mike Dunleavy, according to league sources, not only tanked the season, but tanked the draft, to get out of Milwaukee after being treated as a “lame duck” by owner Herbert Kohl.

Also back in the day GM Ernie Grunfeld and Dave Checketts, according to league sources, “wanted Pat Riley to squirm,” while they tried to lure Alonzo Mourning to the Knicks. The other words being tossed around over the affair were, “hell bent” and “venting of anger and frustration.”

The point here is twofold: One that, Twitter would blow this up in 2015 but was not around in 1995. Secondly, this is nothing compared to what is being alleged as the bad blood applied to Hinkie’s approach.

GM Wayne Embry turned the Cavs into winner virtually overnight some twenty years ago. Did he always call people back? Did he do anything under the radar? Did we recall the former player as a great GM? (he was) Was he even a story? No, etc.

If GM Donnie Walsh ever backed-off one of his patented superb and signature pre-draft deals, would it be circulated on the internet, or Twitter, ESPN, and YouTube? No, because no such media existed from his days with the Pacers.

When Del Harris coached the pre-Kobe-Shaq-Phil empire for the Lakers, league sources said that the logo, GM Jerry West, “would sneak up on unsuspecting GM’s and steal their lunch.”

As for Hinkie being a guy that stays private and does not talk? Ask people in the NBA how GM Kevin McHale conducted himself while heading the Minnesota Timberwolves, who “never gave, any credence whatsoever to the “good ole boy network.”

We should know that Hinkie is not perfect, but we are lucky to have him. Former 76er GM Brad Greenberg drafted Allen Iverson with the number one pick in 1996. Obviously, this was a great pick, and Hinkie has yet to top it, but somehow, I’m thinking Hinkie could have arranged a situation whereby Tim Duncan somehow would have left a year early.

Stay the Hinkie course.