Sam Hinkie Innovated More Than Player Selection

Wasted On the Way

Now that Analytics and long range stratgies have been unleasehed onto the NBA, it won’t go back there again.  The world of analytics and sports science and medicine and world class training facility has arrived into the NBA, and with it the following of the vast numbers and resources of the non-athletes.  Despite the efforts of Joshua Harris’ mercenaries, the Colangelos, to strong-arm the teams front office back to yesteryear of handshakes, gut-instincts, and atta-boys,  the pressure is now on them.  Even a monkey and a dart board could improve the Philadelphia 76ers next season.  With Embiid, Saric and as many as four first round draft picks, the team has no excuse for not improving.  But if there is a hiccup in the progress, the fan base will turn rabid on those who have taken over.

For nearly three years, the NBA had embraced the counter-athlete.  The chess player, book reader, computer programmer, pocket protected geeks who have risen in popularity in recent years.   For three years, professional basketball opened the back door, and allowed spreadsheets, shot charts, matrices, graphics and computer simulations to assist in the day to day and strategic planning of an NBA team.

The epitome of the geek counter culture was Sam Hinkie sitting in the seat of Philadelphia 76ers team president and general manager.  For all of the “basketball minds” screaming for his ouster – the George Karls and the Stephen A Smiths of the world, your NBA has been restored to the “win now” mindset.  Your discomfort with having someone planning two steps ahead of your ability to reason is over now.

Next: When Did Sam Hinkie Decide To Resign?

But for those of us who believed in the process, it all seems like time that we’ve wasted on the way.   Sam Hinkie gave opportunities to overlooked athletes and non-athletes to participate in the closed circle of the NBA.  Perhaps it was his generosity of sharing the glory of the sport that resulted in his eventual exclusion from it.  I usually have a great line to end a story with, but on this one, I don’t.  I don’t think it’s over yet.   Oh perhaps for two years, the Colangelos will make moves and the team will improve rapidly – more from the momentum of so much to spend than on any incredible mastery of insider knowledge.   Instead, I’ll close with the lyrics of a song that seems to capture the tone of the organization right now. It was written by Graham Nash, and sung in 1982 by the group Crosby Still and Nash :

Look around me, I can see my life before me
Running rings around the way it used to be
I am older now I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had started long before I did

And there’s so much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

Oh when you were young did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve?
Look round you now, you must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved

So much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away