3. 1986 — They just blew it
The 76ers were one of the elite teams in the NBA for a decade and the 1986 offseason would seemingly cement that status for yet another 10 years.
Sam Hinkie is not the only 76ers general manager to have fleeced other teams out of high draft picks. Pat Williams was great at talking other general managers, worried about keeping their job, into giving away first-round picks years in the future for some nobody who sat on the Sixers bench.
Due to a trade made years before , the 76ers had the No. 1 pick in the entire draft. North Carolina center Brad Daugherty was the obvious selection.
That spring, the 76ers had been their usual elite self, going 54-28 under coach Matt Guokas. They were so loaded with talent, they played without Moses Malone (broken eye socket) and guard Andrew Toney (foot problems) and still took Milwaukee to seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
A frontline of Malone, Daugherty, Charles Barkley and Julius Erving seemed absolutely frightening. Maurice Cheeks was still running the point and, if Toney got healthy (he never did as it turned out) the Sixers’ guard line was equally scary.
And then the Sixers flat out blew it.
Maybe it was hubris from all the success, or maybe their doctors misread the physicals (76ers doctors making bad evaluations seems to be a common thread in franchise history) but, on draft night, the Sixers made two trades which to call disastrous would be kind.
Saying they wanted to go to a more fast-paced lineup, the Sixers traded the No. 1 pick to Cleveland for journeyman forward Roy Hinson. They then turned around and shipped Malone and promising rookie Terry Catledge to Washington for center Jeff Ruland and power forward Cliff Robinson.
Unlike the Bynum trade, which was universally praised, these moves were immediately condemned by the media and fans.
Amazingly, as awful as the trades seemed at the time, they turned out to be even worse as time went on (another common thread in Sixers trades).
Ruland, due to bad knees, played a total of five games for the Sixers. Hinson lasted a year-and-a-half of nondescript play. Robinson gave the Sixers some inside scoring but he was done after two-and-a-half seasons. On the other end, Malone still had some good years in him and Catledge had a long career.
On the back of Barkley, the 76ers were competitive for the next few years, even going 53-29 in 1989-90, but their future was destroyed and everyone that day, except the Sixers management, knew it.
After making at least the conference finals in seven of the previous 10 years, between 1986 and 2000, the Sixers never got that far again.