Philadelphia 76ers: How Bryan Colangelo Destroyed The Sam Hinkie Process
Thanks to the boneheaded mistakes by Bryan Colangelo, the Philadelphia 76ers are on fire and not in a good way. Sam Hinkie had a vision that no one other than the ‘Evil Genius’ himself saw. It was crazy, yet genius at the same time. Hinkie wanted to blow up a playoff team and build a foundation from the ground up before certain contracts became too large for the Sixers to handle. Out the door was Andre Iguodala and Jrue Holiday and in return, the Sixers gobbled up draft picks and expiring contracts for the future.
With blowing a team up comes losses and the Philadelphia 76ers had their fair share of them. In the process of doing so also came high lottery picks and disposable contracts in which Hinkie proved his worth, but yet, no one understood his vision.
The selections of Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor, Dario Saric, and Joel Embiid brought cheers for the new look Philadelphia 76ers. But each came with a warning label attached. Noel and Embiid came in injured, Saric was still overseas, which left Okafor as the man to hold it down until the rest of the pieces were ready. However, during the waiting period, Hinkie was let go and the team was handed over to Bryan Colangelo and that’s where everything changed.
Noel was the first to go but Colangelo waited entirely too long to trade the defensive big man. Instead of banking on his talents when teams were in desperation mode for a serviceable rim protector, Colangelo held on and the outcome was a miserable deal, according to Sports Illustrated, with the Dallas Mavericks for a protected first-round pick, Andrew Bogut, and Justin Anderson. What makes this deal so heartbreaking is that a deal involving Noel should have brought more value to the team. Bogut was released, Anderson was seldom used, and that pick won’t amount to anything. The 76ers let 10.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks walk out the door for crumbs.
Bryan Colangelo Destroyed What Sam Hinkie Built
If that wasn’t enough, it was the ultimate mishandling of a trade in recent NBA history that should have gotten Bryan Colangelo fired. The Boston Celtics weren’t too interested in the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft so they put out feelers to see which team would be willing to mortgage a bit of their future. You guessed it, Colangelo took a bite of the forbidden fruit and gave up a pick that proved how valuable Hinkie was to the process. Colangelo traded away one of the Sixers most coveted future picks (Lakers 2018 Protected first round) to Boston along with their 2017 No. 3 pick just to take Markelle Fultz, who neither the Lakers nor Celtics wanted to begin with.
What made this so intriguing was that the Philadelphia 76ers had planned on using Ben Simmons at the point guard position and snagged J.J. Redick for $23 million, so why was Fultz that important to give away two top picks for a player you didn’t need and one who was going to be there at No. 3 anyway?
While the deals for Reddick, Ersan Ilyasova, Marco Belinelli, and Amir Johnson did pay dividends for the young squad, Colangelo is also the reason the Sixers gave Robert Covington more money than any team would have. Then we have the fallout from the Twitter Burnout Accounts. What happened there should have Colangelo fired as early as this week. The Sixers did manage to win 53 games this season and their future looks bright but Colangelo just put a black eye on what Hinkie built.
It took Sam Hinkie 3+ seasons to build this team and Bryan Colangelo one year to tear it down. What the Philadelphia 76ers must think about going forward is how does this affect future players? No one wants to play for a leader who did what Colangelo did. The Sixers were given the best odds to land LeBron James in free agency this summer. Will this leave a bad taste in player’s mouths about joining the Sixers?
It may have taken a while for Hinkie’s vision to come to light but it took only a few moves for Colangelo to screw the entire process up.
Mark has been covering Sports and Entertainment for the past six years. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, ESPN, Fox Sports, Teen Vogue, and many other websites.
