Que Sera, Bryan?
The Philadelphia 76ers are on a new course, or so we believe. While the current off-season moves have the Hinkie flair on an individual basis, on an aggregate basis, they feel nothing of the kind. Sam Hinkie made his own destiny, and in the process made the lives of 29 other NBA team executives’ lives a nightmare.
In hoarding the best position possible in the draft, and then siphoning off that position to various NBA teams by trading on draft night, he was levying a tax on other NBA teams – a sales tax of redistributing draft picks by getting more picks. That ability to know which team wanted which player and would trade how much more to get him required incredible amounts of preparation to be able to make lightning fast decisions on draft night.
While it was the first NBA draft, new general manager Bryan Colangelo made no such NBA draft night trades. While it may be that the idea of landing both Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Furkan Korkmaz, both players filling desperate needs and projected on many boards to be drafted far earlier, was too much to hope for and the team simply did not field calls when their selection arrived.
But the team did not enter the draft that way. In fact, the resounding message was that the NBA version of the Philly flea market was in full swing, and that the Philadelphia 76ers wanted to deal their picks and even some young players for a modest price.
We know where that got us. We were offered cents on the dollar by our prospective trading partners, a trend which continues even to this day. So far, the team has held firm on not biting on a fire sale trade scenario.
Next: Conventional Trades Going Forward