Recent Rumors of Sam Hinkie links to the Sacramento Kings are swirling. But even if he is given demigod status in an NBA team’s front office, he will need a clone of Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown
When Philadelphia 76ers former president and general manager hired Brett Brown to be the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, he was focusing on a head coach whose ability to develop raw talent into NBA caliber players.
At the time, winning was not an immediate issue. In fact, under Sam Hinkie’s three year reign, winning never became a reality. The team cast a wide as possible net into the cracks and crevices of the NBA. Trolling the NBA draft second round, chumming players from the ranks of the undrafted, Hinkie was simply fishing where other teams were not.
When you fish for franchise players, you don’t try to drop lines in the same spots 29 other NBA team are fishing. But that simply meant the Philadelphia 76ers rosters swelled with talent believed to be unworthy of NBA level of competition.
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So Hinkie’s role was bargain shopper. He looked for undervalued talent in the damnedest places. And he assembled that talent onto the roster of the Philadelphia 76ers. While league executives watched in horror, the 76ers amassed draft picks, and cut team payroll.
Officially, the NBA did not condone the practice. But when an individual NBA team needed to dump horrifically overpriced contracts, they came to the Philadelphia 76ers and paid the price.
More draft picks.