12 People who turned their backs on the Philadelphia 76ers

11. Sam Hinkie

The 76ers hired Hinkie as their general manager and president of basketball operations in 2013. It was a franchise-altering more, which added The Process to NBA vernacular. Hinkie planned to strip the franchise to the studs and rebuild through the draft. Wins were not part of the calculus early on. Hinkie wanted to stockpile draft capital and young talent in hopes of building a perennial title contender.

Losing as much as the Sixers did takes a toll on the entire organization. They had just 47 victories in Hinkie’s three seasons in charge of the team. Philadelphia would often try to find talent outside the NBA, which meant playing subpar units on the floor. It was a disastrous era that did not bear fruit until after Hinkie’s departure.

The president and general manager resigned in April of 2016 with a must-read letter to the team’s ownership group. The writing was on the wall. Philadelphia had already brought in Jerry Colangelo and was close to hiring his son, Bryan. Hinkie was losing control after three years of historic tanking, and the franchise wanted to go in a different direction.

The Process was Sam Hinkie turning his back on the Philadelphia 76ers. He changed the NBA. The league adjusted the lottery odds to limit tanking and has put rules in place so teams cannot aggressively lose games like the Sixers did. The team could have been better under Hinkie, but the executive chose an aggressive strategy to rebuild with high draft picks.