Are Philadelphia 76ers At Risk Of Trading Joel Embiid?

Hinkie Bet His Career On Embiid, Will Colangelo Risk the Same?

It was clear that from the moment the Philadelphia 76ers selected Joel Embiid with the third pick of the 2014 NBA draft, the team gushed over the potential of the young Kansas Jayhawk center. Perhaps it was the size of 7’0″ on a center who had unparalleled athleticism. Perhaps it was the young Cameroon’s high level of basketball IQ, despite having virtually no background in the sport with the exception of one shortened season at Kansas University.  Perhaps it was the infectious nature of the young man, who seemed to revel in the Philadelphia 76er experience, an extravert opposite of introvert executive Sam Hinkie, which inspired the close relationship which developed between the excutive and his star player.

Perhaps it was the unbridled power of this young man’s analytics scoring.   We had discussed the fact that the box plus minus index (BPM) for Joel Embiid came in at 14.9, while that of draft prospect Ben Simmons falls lower at 12.8.  If that is a scoring matrix available to the general public, I’ve no doubt that analytics oriented Hinkie had more specific indices that ranked Embiid’s basketball potential in the “Super-IQ” range.  Perhaps that is what committed Hinkie to the nurturing and development of Embiid.  We may never know.

But it was a fact that Hinkie had surprising allegiance to his young center. In fact, it was that devotion to the center who could not seem to find the basketball court which may have contributed mightily to the forced expulsion of Sam Hinkie from the sidelines of the basketball court.  While Sam Hinkie devoted medical and scientific experts to the one player, the other fourteen struggled day in and day out on the basketball court, desperate to find any success.  If the team had a contributing 15th player, that may have changed.  If the team had more attention from the general manager to deliver players to help in a real time basis, that may have changed.  If the team had selected another player with the third pick of the 2014 NBA draft, that may have changed the team dynamics and placed the Sixers in the 20-30 win “safe zone” of the NBA.

But with the writing of history, nothing did change.  And so, the team struggled as undermanned teams do throughout the entire season.  The Sixers were plagued by injuries, both at the  beginning and ending of the season.  The team ownership, despite a narrative to the contrary, had decided to move on and away from Sam Hinkie somewhere during the season opening losing streak which set the stage for the hiring of Philadelphia 76ers executive Jerry Colangelo.  Thus, the fate of Sam Hinkie was sealed far sooner than he would have ever have imagined.  But the evolution of infiltrating the professional sport of basketball with advanced analytics and decision making tools was already entrenched now.

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