The Philadelphia 76ers, Hinkie and the Media: Spike Eskin Weighs in on the Process
By Dan Falcone
Sixer Sense Dan Falcone lines up Philly’s popular sportscaster Spike Eskin to discuss the Philadelphia 76ers plan and outlook
Spike Eskin is a leading sports commentator in Philadelphia. He has written and commented extensively on sports in Philadelphia and Sam Hinkie’s role in revitalizing the 76ers franchise via a controversial tear down. You can also find him as the host of the Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast.
I spoke with Spike about the Sixers
Dan Falcone: Spike, thanks for taking the time to talk to about basketball in Philly. I wanted to ask first, how do you characterize what the Philadelphia 76ers are doing? What’s your general overview of the plan?
Spike Eskin: The plan is to give the team the best chance at finding star players. Unless you’ve already got a star player, the best way to obtain one is through the draft.
The second best way to obtain one is by trading young, promising players, or draft picks, in return for one. Hinkie’s plan does that for the Sixers. It comes, and has come, with a lot of short term pain, but ultimately, if your goal is a championship, this gives you the best chance.
Dan Falcone: The major sports media, specifically elite sports media, in the local area, has shown some disdain for Hinkie and the plan, mostly from distinguished, elder statesmen journalists. Do you see it breaking down generationally? Or is this an oversimplification on my part?
Spike Eskin: Most arguments in sports end up being whittled down to black and white issues, right or wrong, yes or no, good or bad. So even though there is some intelligent discourse about what maybe has gone right and wrong during Hinkie’s time here, most of that gets ignored.
I do think it’s oversimplified to just say it’s good or bad, but I’d agree that’s what most of the discussion has been about. I think it’s fair to say it’s a generational thing, as it seems like 40 is the cutoff age for liking it or not liking it. However, I do think many in the media have had a problem with it because Hinkie hasn’t been as available to them as they’d like.
Dan Falcone: The “Hinkie Cult”, of which you are satirically may be a part, has a meaning in their message: Max Rappaport writes, “We admit that the product right now is garbage, and we know tanking doesn’t guarantee future success, but at the end of the day we support the plan because we’re sick of the mediocrity we had come to expect year after year… We’d rather fail at being great than succeed at being okay.”
I would submit that the Sixers were less than okay before Hinkie. But can you elaborate on this “cult sentiment?”
Spike Eskin: Sixers fans were sick of being average. Many people wanted them to tear it down, and build it up from scratch before Hinkie got here. When he got here, and he did it, I think there was sense of relief and hope. Building a champion in the NBA is difficult, so having someone commit to a path to get there has meant a lot of dedicated supporters.
Dan Falcone: I have noticed the fans, mostly younger, supporting the process. Some older fans do as well. In the media I have not heard much support for the process. Is that because the Sixers mediocrity made their lives easier in the past?
Spike Eskin: I don’t think mediocrity made their lives easier. I do think having a general manager who would speak to them on the record made their lives easier. I also think covering a team that wins 15 percent of their games would be pretty draining.
Dan Falcone: I also have noticed a great deal of energy directed at Hinkie, all negative energy. Writers and fans feel that the Sixers are a corrupt organization and that Hinkie’s efforts are unique in league history. Two observations:
One, even when the Sixers were trying to win and make the playoffs, they ranked seventh in basketball importance in the city.
Two, corruption historically, in the front office has been much worse in years past, until David Stern cleaned it up. Can you comment on the hypocrisy and historical amnesia by our town’s commentators?
Spike Eskin: I don’t agree with your assertion that they ranked seventh in terms of basketball importance in the city, at any time.
Dan Falcone: Is there any credence to the argument that since the Philadelphia 76ers have not won a title since 1983 with the traditional way, why not give Hinkie’s plan a shot? What is so wrong about this logic?
Spike Eskin: As much as I agree with what has gone on with the Sixers, the fact that the last way of doing things didn’t work does not mean that Hinkie’s plan will work. It is a well thought out decision making process that I think is ultimately the best way to build a championship team.
Mind you, that doesn’t make building a championship team objectively likely, it just means it’s the *most* likely. I think there’s something to be said for the fact that building a championship team in the NBA is so difficult, that making that your only target is a mistake.
Special note to question 5:
“The 76ers, when they are okay, or even a little bit good, still fall far behind the other teams in following, and for that matter behind the Philadelphia Big Five and Drexel Men’s basketball teams. There is also no doubt a superior aura and veiled disrespect for the Sixers personnel in relation to their potential and this vitriol makes its way to Hinkie.
It is amazing how for years, some Philadelphia sports fans followed the Big Five not for its basketball, but for how comfortable they were with the least popular and most diverse sport left to the exploited amateurs. We could parade our working class delusions and pretend to be like the NBA-less city of Pittsburgh.
Myth: Sam Hinkie is damaging the integrity of the league.
Reality: In a league that has featured point shaving, referee bias, discrimination, corrupt franchise moves, gambling issues and more? I love the NBA but I can’t allow history to get trumped by memory and watch Hinkie disparaged to that extent. He may be a little dark and a bottom-line guy, but I think the plan has some moral center that can hold.
Myth: The Hinkie plan is doomed to failure because it is without precedent.
Reality: Back in the day the Houston Rockets and the Chicago Bulls threw the end of their seasons in order to acquire Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan. They were both okay players as you recall and the teams won. Former Commissioner Stern had to change the lottery format multiple times over a course of decades to get where we are now, which is nowhere near as bad. Hinkie looks like a school kid compared to those execs of a bygone era. Malcolm Gladwell has documented most of this.
Myth: The Sixers are tanking.
Reality: They are rebuilding. Tanking is also false by policy and definition. Even Commissioner Silver says this is not tanking. Before Adam Silver ever supported Hinkie David Stern changed the lottery format several times to prohibit tanking. If you go back and look at 1984-1985, 1989-1990, and 1992-1993 in terms of drafting mechanisms you will notice an evolution to penalize teams with uncertainty, when it was perceived that they were vying for the top player.
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 McHaleconducted himself while heading the Minnesota Timberwolves, who “never gave, any credence whatsoever to the “good ole boy network.”