2021-22 NBA Thread

[BBTV]

7 minutes ago, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said:

The Process was not supposed to attract superstars; it was supposed to draft them.

 

The Process was to become a franchise that was a perennial contender, champion, fill the building, and be relevant.  You can't get a James Harden without other tradable assets, one of which was a #1 overall pick.  I simply don't understand why there's such a literal and absolute definition of what the Process was all about.

 

Nothing wrong with Princeton - it's obviously a great school for some things - but if we're talking MBA, it's not even ranked in the same stratosphere as Stanford, so you inadvertently made my point for me.

 

 

[Digby]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

While I didn't read all 13 pages (not back then and not now), you gotta respect a guy that resigns like that.  He's got an MBA from Stanford, which along with Wharton and Harvard is a top two or three (maybe even top one) business school in the country.  

 

The MBA-ization of baseball has literally killed the sport, so this is a wild take. Who cares? Business school is for people with no talent but lots of money and privilege.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

The Process was a method to convince billionaires that losing was okay for the sake of losing. It was Malcolm Gladwell-esque dumb guy thinks he's smart, except Hinkie really is the genius since he got paid millions and was lionized after four losing seasons.

 

Sixers topped at the second round of the playoffs before Hinkie, and have topped at the second round of the playoffs after Hinkie. He's now been gone for, what, four years? That's a generation in NBA timeline, and the entire roster is turned over, except for one guy. And a big reason that one guy was drafted was because they knew he'd be hurt for a while, making the team that much more likely to lose.

 

Hinkie was a professional loser and, to his credit, the best ever at it.

[Digby]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

I simply don't understand why there's such a literal and absolute definition of what the Process was all about.

 

Because otherwise it's just bog-standard tanking, which is nothing new but you can't build a brand around it.

[SFGiants58]

15 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

The Process was a method to convince billionaires that losing was okay for the sake of losing. It was Malcolm Gladwell-esque dumb guy thinks he's smart, except Hinkie really is the genius since he got paid millions and was lionized after four losing seasons.

 

Exactly. Hinkie was a flim-flam man, who resold basic tanking as a marketable brand for sports teams.

 

The MBA-ization of all sports has had a negative impact on their watchability. I wouldn't blame a Philly fan for abandoning the Sixers during the peak process years.

[Red Comet]

I liked The Process when it was called Moneyball. Seems like it wound up having a similar level of success as Moneyball. 

[Indigo]

6 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

Because otherwise it's just bog-standard tanking, which is nothing new but you can't build a brand around it.

That’s the point. Hinkie tried to build a brand around it to fool both fans and owners that this is more than his conventional tanking, even though that’s literally what it was. (He seems to have convinced a certain Philadelphian on there boards). He’s a genius at business (hence the MBA; he convinced the owner to pay him millions for a future result that didn’t—and still hasn’t—happened), but not a great general manager.

[SFGiants58]

5 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

I liked The Process when it was called Moneyball. Seems like it wound up having a similar level of success as Moneyball. 

 

At least the Sixers' arena doesn't spew sewage out into the lockers and they're not one foot out the door to Las Vegas.

[BBTV]

31 minutes ago, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said:

That’s the point. Hinkie tried to build a brand around it to fool both fans and owners that this is more than his conventional tanking, even though that’s literally what it was. (He seems to have convinced a certain Philadelphian on there boards). He’s a genius at business (hence the MBA; he convinced the owner to pay him millions for a future result that didn’t—and still hasn’t—happened), but not a great general manager.

 

The owner is a Wharton MBA / hedge fund billionaire, so I don't think Hinkie's Stanford degree knocked him on his socks.  (for what it's worth, I went to MBA orientation at Villanova and decided it was for douchebags without any real skills, and reenrolled in undergrad classes so I could get into a masters of Comp Sci, which changed my life, so I have no dog in the MBA fight.)

 

Whatever - you guys are all wrong, and none of you are invited to the parade (the parade we're going to have for making it to the ECF.)  

[Digby]

14 minutes ago, BBTV said:

Whatever - you guys are all wrong, and none of you are invited to the parade (the parade we're going to have for making it to the ECF.)  

 

 

[who do you think]

> Tank one season to try and land a top draft pick

 

"Ya I guess that makes sense, they weren't winning anything anyway and whoever lands [prospect X] could turn their franchise around"

 

> Tank multiple seasons to try and land multiple top draft picks

 

"NOOOOOOOO  YOU CAN'T DO THAT"

[DG_ThenNowForever]

23 minutes ago, who do you think said:

> Tank one season to try and land a top draft pick

 

"Ya I guess that makes sense, they weren't winning anything anyway and whoever lands [prospect X] could turn their franchise around"

 

> Tank multiple seasons to try and land multiple top draft picks

 

"NOOOOOOOO  YOU CAN'T DO THAT"

 

No. You can't tank every single season, field the bare minimum roster, and make a farce of competition. You can't actually do that. The NBA isn't baseball.

[who do you think]

Just now, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

No. You can't tank every single season, field the bare minimum roster, and make a farce of competition. You can't actually do that. The NBA isn't baseball.

 

The Sixers actually did that, and they landed top-three draft picks in four consecutive drafts. You don't like it, blame the system for enabling such behavior.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 minute ago, who do you think said:

 

The Sixers actually did that, and they landed top-three draft picks in four consecutive drafts. You don't like it, blame the system for enabling such behavior.

 

And fortunately, the system told them to stop that, and most of those picks ended up playing not in Philadelphia.

 

The Celtics also had multiple top 5 picks over several seasons and they didn't need to destroy their roster to do so (only Brooklyn's, but that's not their fault).

[who do you think]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

And fortunately, the system told them to stop that, and most of those picks ended up playing not in Philadelphia.

 

The Celtics also had multiple top 5 picks over several seasons and they didn't need to destroy their roster to do so (only Brooklyn's, but that's not their fault).

 

The system that enabled the Sixers to do what they did is still very much in place; lose more games, have higher lottery odds. Adam Silver and his domdaddies aren't the system, they oversee the system, and they didn't like that Philly was exploiting their system, so they got angry and forced the Sixers to fire Hinkie.

 

When your team is at the end of the line and you have a decision to make as to how you're going to pull back and rebuild, there are multiple ways to make that happen, and which method is the 'right' way depends on what you have to work with. If you have pieces that you're done with but someone else values more than you do, you're in business. You can hope to trade them for the motherlode of draft picks and essentially outsource your entire rebuild - like what the Celtics did - or, failing that, try to Moneyball it by rolling your assets into other assets and eventually cash them in on a difference maker - like Houston transitioning from T-Mac/Yao to Harden without ever going below .500 in a brutal conference, accomplished by using the valuable players they had (T-Mac's contract, Ariza, Battier) and rolling them into middling first rounders and the likes of Kevin Martin, Courtney Lee, Jordan Hill (guys that can help good teams or recent former lottery picks with PoTEnTiaL), until one day they had a viable trade package for when a star (Harden) became available.

 

In the case of the Sixers, their roster was a smoldering crater that still hadn't really recovered from doing an absolutely horrible job in the Iverson era, trading Iverson himself for nothing, then getting swindled by Elton Brand. Their absolute ceiling was scrapping for the 8 seed in a crap conference every year with Iguodala (literally not a starter on a championship team) as their best player and the likes of Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes playing big minutes. Their only way out of that was to try and find at least one franchise player with his best days still in front of him; possible through trade, but much more likely through the draft. They had already traded Iguodala for Andrew Bynum and struck out. The only cards Hinkie had to play were Evan Turner (former #2 pick not exactly setting the world on fire), Thad Young (generic Tim Thomas-tier forward, got a first rounder out of him) and Jrue Holiday, who went for Nerlens Noel on draft day (bust) and a future pick (Elfrid Payton, traded for Dario Saric, eventually traded for Jimmy Butler). Other than that, their team was pure detritus. Please don't try to argue that they could have gotten something good for :censored:ing Tony Wroten or whoever. No way forward for Philly but to give themselves the best lottery odds possible to give themselves as many opportunities as possible to hit on that franchise guy, and the system dictates that the worse your team is, the better your lottery odds will be. So again, blame the system. The Sixers had no other viable options.

[BBTV]

Changing the topic (though it's still all related), there's rumors that Ben Simmons will actually sit on the bench on Thursday when the Nets play in Philadelphia.  

 

1.  Can they possibly censor out the F Ben Simmons chants?  Those chants break out in the middle of Market street, let alone at every home game regardless of opponent.  I imagine they'll be deafening on Thursday.

 

2.  Can the in-house camera people possibly put a bench shot with him in it up on the scoreboard?  Is it irresponsible for them to "egg on the crowd" by focusing on him?

 

3.  In the event that he actually starts crying, see #2.

 

4.  You know Embiid is going to be doing some massive trolling on social media and in interviews (not sure he can top what he's already done) but does he egg Simmons on?   Like maybe, if the Sixers are up big and he gets a breakaway, he pretends to not be able to shoot and wait for someone else to come help him out?  Or tank free throws on purpose and flash up a "2 5" with his hands?

 

 

5.  F Ben Simmons.

 

[SFGiants58]

What would say if a fan assassinated Ben Simmons?

[LMU]

2 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

What would say if a fan assassinated Ben Simmons?

At least Simmons isn't being called, gasp, names!  Westbrick!  The horror!

 

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

What would say if a fan assassinated Ben Simmons?

 

Apparently Clutch Sports is filing a grievance to get Ben's $20M back, saying that the fans created too much of a hostile environment for him to play there, and him sitting on the bench is basically "bait" to get the fans to destroy him so they can say "see?  Look at all the extra security we had to have for him?  Pay him."

 

One thing I read was that fans should ban together and cheer for him, give him a standing ovation, and chant "thank you Ben!" because getting his grievance thrown out and costing him $20M would be more satisfying than booing / punching / throwing bricks at him.

[Red Comet]

10 hours ago, LMU said:

At least Simmons isn't being called, gasp, names!  Westbrick!  The horror!

 

Look, those are just the breaks. You get paid millions of dollars, enjoy benefits that most people dream of, to do things most men can never do with the sort of talent they’ll never have and in return they get to talk about you when you mess up. That’s just how it is. I feel bad for his kids, but OTOH, how many kids get to say their Dad is a star?

Edited March 9, 2022 by Red Comet