Leading the Sixers draft strategy, here’s where Sam Hinkie messed up
Sam Hinkie is a polarizing figure in sports, but especially within the Philadelphia 76ers fan community. Plenty of fans love him, appreciated his vision for building the team, and stood by his unconventional ways.
Another significant group of people couldn’t stand him or fathom the years of losing he led the team into as he attempted to stockpile assets and look for diamonds in the rough via the draft and cheap trades in which other teams had given up on raw players a bit too early.
Hinkie’s draft strategy was too complex to boil down to just a sentence or paragraph, but one of the main guiding principles for his operation was stockpiling as many draft picks and young players as possible and putting the onus on them to excel.
Hinkie essentially figured that over the course of several seasons, the more “swings at the plate” you get, the better chance you have of landing a star when it comes to the draft.
There were hits. The Sixers landed Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Jerami Grant to name a few while Hinkie was overseeing operations.
Still, there were misses.
For the purposes of this article, I looked at players that have only played 100 games or more throughout their NBA career. While a player not reaching that mark could be viewed as a loss and a “bad” draft pick, it’s too difficult to judge those players as success or failures since there are plenty of “what-ifs”, and because the risk of players simply not panning out at all was something Hinkie calculated into his draft process.
That list of players who logged fewer than 100 games includes Pierre “Pappy Jack” Jackson, Russ Smith and J.P. Tokoto.
It leaves us with four main “bad” selections that Hinkie made, all at varying degrees.
Rest assured, Hinkie would never call these picks “bad”. He’d probably say something whimsical about how there are no bad picks because a proper draft strategy needs to account for the risk and reward potential of each and every prospect, planning contingency plans for the worst-case scenario of each prospect.
So, without further ado, these are the worst picks made in the Hinkie era in Philadelphia.
Sixers draft: Worst Sam Hinkie picks — K.J. McDaniels
Drafted with the 32nd overall pick in the draft, K.J. McDaniels looked like he may be one of the “diamonds in the rough” Hinkie was after in the early years of starting “The Process” in Philadelphia.
He was not.
McDaniels was one of the first players that was offered a “Hinkie special” contract, something he would become famous for during his time as general manager. Hinkie grew to like stockpiling second round picks because of the advantage they provided the team. Contracts for second round draftees didn’t need to be guaranteed, and the team could offer an extremely low salary while retaining the player’s draft rights.
It was a major power play by Hinkie. The non-guaranteed nature of the contracts put the onus on the player to perform and prove themselves, which allowed the Sixers to take more risks on these second-round picks.
The reward potential was great. The risk profile was relatively low.
Over time, the tendency to sign players to these kinds of deals pushed prospects and agents from wanting to work with Philadelphia, often refusing workouts with the team to dissuade them from drafting them.
McDaniels and his agent were some of the first to publicly stand up against the nature of these “prove-it” deals, as he skipped day one of training camp in protest.
Eventually, the team would come to a more agreeable deal with McDaniels.
Per 36 minutes in his rookie season, McDaniels wasn’t bad. He averaged 13.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game. He was solid on the defensive end for Philadelphia, but the team traded him to the Houston Rockets for Isiah Canaan and, you guessed it, a second-round pick.
This wasn’t a devastating pick for the Sixers because they came out net-positive, but it only furthered the revolving door of second-rounders for Hinkie and the team during the process era. That might have been acceptable at the time, but it kept the team pitted in a place of mediocrity for an era.
And as for the pick itself. McDaniels hasn’t played in the league since the 2016-17 season. When Philly selected him in the second round, Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, Nikola Jokic, and Jordan Clarkson were all still available.
Sixers draft: Worst Sam Hinkie picks — Michael Carter-Williams
Michael Carter-Williams was for some time one of the most polarizing players in “The Process” when the Sixers traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks at the trade deadline of his sophomore season.
MCW had just won the Rookie of the Year award in 2014. He was averaging 15.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game, why move on from his talents so quickly?
Hinkie was right about trading Carter-Williams based on what we’ve seen from his career post-Philadelphia, but the pick itself was a miss. Philly gained a late first-round pick from the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Carter-Williams, who they originally selected with a lottery pick.
Carter-Williams showed some signs of decline in his sophomore season. Some might have felt like his career was salvageable at that point, but Hinkie saw the trend and decided to sell while he still could.
Since then, Carter-Williams has fallen below 10 points per game in four different seasons. He’s been a positive bench player in the right situation with the Orlando Magic, but his career has been that of a journeyman thus far.
Philly needed a point guard that would be able to better initiate the offense and dominate games. Ben Simmons would be coming to Philadelphia years later, and not committing too much to players like MCW too early was one of the things Hinkie did well.
That said, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Steven Adams were still all on the board when Hinkie selected MCW.
Sixers draft: Worst Sam Hinkie picks — Jahlil Okafor
Jahlil Okafor was selected third overall by the Sixers in 2015. One pick later, Kristaps Porzingis was selected by the New York Knicks. Myles Turner, Devin Booker, Montrezl Harrell, and Josh Richardson were all on the board when the Sixers made their selection, among others. Not only is this Hinkie’s worst pick, but it’s one of the worst lottery picks in Sixers history.
There was reason to be excited about Okafor. He looked to be a strong offensive threat that might be able to slide over to the four and complement the likes of the rim-protecting Nerlens Noel, who was establishing himself in the Liberty City at the time.
Okafor had just won a national championship with the Duke Blue Devils and flashed abilities that looked NBA ready in the post.
Sam Hinkie and the Sixers probably overthought this one and oversold themselves on Okafor’s potential, neglecting to fully consider his shortcomings. It didn’t help that Porzingis and his agent refused to work out with the Sixers, making his risk profile rather high for the team.
And those shortcomings presented themselves in full force early on in Okafor’s career. On the defensive end, Okafor struggled tremendously to keep up with the league’s top centers. His offensive game, while proficient in the post, wasn’t enough to make up for his defensive shortcomings and his lack of effort on that end and on the boards.
Okafor put up an impressive 17.5 points per game in his rookie season, but an atrocious defensive box plus/minus of -1.8.
Philly tried to make things work with Okafor for the first two seasons, but ultimately things would only get worse throughout his time with the team. It became increasingly clear that the Sixers had drafted themselves into a logjam with Noel and Okafor, as neither player had the skillset to slide over to the four.
The team needed to move on from at least one of them, and with Joel Embiid coming back in full-force following an injury-filled start to his career, the team would move forward and be relatively OK without either. The Sixers traded both players.
Traded partway through his third season with the Sixers, Philly sent Okafor to the Brooklyn Nets.
Okafor has since had a small resurgence, particularly this season with the New Orleans Pelicans, but still struggles on the defensive end. His effort seems to be a bit better, but he’ll never be the starting center many thought he would be when Philly selected him third overall in 2015.