Future Is… ALMOST Now
The complexity of the rebuild of the Sixers franchise is just too much to absorb simultaneously. So let’s break it down into it’s major components. With a goal of becoming the champions of the National Basketball Association, the organization had to evaluate all aspects of the team and supporting functions to ensure that all components were driving to the same goal.
I. New Training Facility
Well, any organization seeking to do a facelift invariably turns to the bricks and mortar. Nothing says “we are new and improved” more than a new building. But the Sixers didn’t build just to be new, but to be a front runner in the NBA. So the team is building a basketball training complex which will feature a 2800 square foot locker room, a player restaurant, cardio and weight room, a hydrotherapy room with a 40-foot lap pool and 2 NBA sized basketball courts. With the move over to South Jersey the Sixers plan on growing their relationship within the Camden community.
A video of the new facility can be found below:
This was just one of the team’s innovations.
II. Basketball Analytics
The organization made a huge investment at incorporating basketball analytics into the day to day operations at the player level, but also into the building of the NBA roster, and into the overall scheme of building an NBA championship team. With the team aiming at youth, analytics leverages the coaching staff to give immediate feedback to the player. Even when players practiced alone in the gym, Hinkie was able to discuss their accuracy. For a “non-basketball guy”, Hinkie certainly understood a great deal about basketball.
III. Sports Science and Medicine
The team wanted to infuse the latest and greatest science and medical breakthoughs into the infrastructure of the team. Having been burned by the Andrew Bynum fiasco, the team was incredibly wise to seek not only help, but perhaps the world’s premier expert in the field in the recruitment of Doctor David T. Martin. Martin immediately paid dividends to the team by personalizing the recovery of center Joel Embiid, particularly since a need for a second foot surgery was discovered.
IV. Coaching and Staffing to promote player development
When the team hired head coach Brett Brown, Hinkie was hiring more than a coach. He was hiring a professional mentor and lifestyle coach as well. Simultaneously, the team invested in a support cast of counselors, strength conditioning, dietitians, and more to fulfill the 24 hour needs of a training athlete.
V. Restoring draft picks into the organization
This was probably one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the former general manager, but perhaps one of the most valuable. You can see it in the 2016 NBA draft, where the Philadelphia 76ers have an opportunity to end up with two of the first five picks in this draft, and four of the first thirty. The rights to swap picks with the Sacramento Kings also boosts the chances to draft at the first overall pick of the draft.
The pain of the losses translates directly into the draft picks in this draft.
VI. Contract Writing for Developing Players
This is another under-appreciated area, and one that has drawn so much ire from NBA players’ agents. Sam Hinkie was a master of front loading an NBA contract. That seems counter productive, doesn’t it? Well not exactly. Hinkie overpaid a prospect in year one in order to retain a sever-ability clause in later years. If a player was offered $700,000 in year one to sign elsewhere, Hinkie would offer $1,200,000 for the same year one. But where the $700,000 contract could be a multi-year deal, there were no team options written into the contract. In Hinkie’s paper, you bet there were.
Trusting his own eye for talent, Hinkie signed any number of players to those more lucrative, but more team friendly contracts. In the occasion where a player would elect not to do so, as the case of K.J. McDaniels, Hinkie would give them a one year deal.
But in the end, all of the value Hinkie generated for the team’s future did little to help the team’s present. And the political forces of the NBA finally got the break they were looking for.
Next: He Has To Go!