If you were to look close enough at the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, you could practically see mirrors outside each stadium and arena, reflecting strategy, struggle, and a passion for winning, that can detrimentally run teams into the ground that refuse to acknowledge reality.
The 76ers only grasp at a true identity since the Allen Iverson era, came in the form of Andre Iguodala – traded in 2012 – and proved futile. The swingman was asked to perform outside of his comfort zone offensively, and even his defensive prowess could not make up for his inability to lead the team with a nearly non-existent supporting cast.
Sixers Head Coach Brett Brown spent 11 seasons as the Spurs director of player development, and was crucial in consistently creating the staple San Antonio top-to-bottom roster – often filled with foreign talent – that bought into the guru Gregg Popovich's philosophy of old-fashioned teamwork above all else.
In the explosive information age, analytics have become the next frontier of sports. As analysis inevitably grows more complex, new crops of coaches, and front office staff will appear, each betting on their own perceived ability to create the NBA's Moneyball equivalent. To fully understand, simply glance across the street to find Chip Kelly's sports science regiments including: sleep studies, and personalized post-practice smoothies. As the focus shifts away from coaching players to fit a system, organizations go get the guys that fit their system, the guys that can be acquired at a lower cost than expected: value is everything.
Enter Sixers General Manager Sam Hinkie, an early analytics fanatic, who took the helm in Philadelphia in 2013, a few months before the Brown hiring. Combined, they bring to Philadelphia an executable plan, although you may hear it referred to as “the ballsiest experiment in American sports".
Hinkie, like today's data fiends, believes that his methods of asset acquisition can create a championship formula. After all, the team hired him after he presented a PowerPoint presentation to ownership, detailing every transaction that he made leading to the acquisition of James Harden in Houston, where he served as executive vice president of basketball operations. Contrary to how it may appear, the man is not flying by the seat of his pants, nor does he mind if the pundits believe so.
The Eastern Conference is horrid. Teams fall into limbo, squeezing into the last few playoff spots nearly ten games under .500, and receive middle of the pack draft compensation. In the nine years after 2004-05, until Hinkie and Brown stepped in, Philadelphia finished between seventh and ninth in the conference, eight times. The year they didn't -- they finished third to last.
For the first time in a long time, the team has a plan. However, it's brought consecutive years below 20 wins for the first time in franchise history--something a city fueled by winning is not fully comfortable with. Hinkie has proven able to acquire asset after asset, shipping some off for future assets, more often than the more rational public has the patience for.
The Sixers notably traded Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams after his freshman campaign, fueling doubters who claimed that the continual disregard for putting any semblance of talent on the floor, should prompt rule changes from commissioner Adam Silver. With a point guard heavy draft on the horizon, the team is reportedly interested in Ohio State freshman D'Angelo Russell. Hinkie dealt the point guard whose below average jump shot and away from the basket offensive skills left something to be desired, despite his early accolades.
Carter-Williams took more than half of his shots from within four feet of the basket in Philadelphia – territory patrolled by giants Nerlens Noel, 6'11", and soon-to-be-healthy, 7-feet-tall Joel Embiid, and Carter-Williams' lack of outside scoring is raising concern in Milwaukee. This season, he made only 31 percent of his shots from outside four feet, and within a three-point range .
Philadelphia fans: embrace the process. You do not have to accept losing, but immerse yourself in the future. Look no further than the Phillies front office to see what blatant ignorance toward reality does to a championship window. Upon his arrival, Hinkie made sure that he brought reality crashing down to Broad Street.
You'll hear New York media laud Phil Jackson's tanking efforts, after their early season buyer-status torpedoed the team to the league's second-worst record. You'll hear journalists, like CBS New York's John Schmeelk, attempt to justify their organization saying, “the Knicks are tanking, and tanking the old-fashioned way: with gross incompetence. A superior tank to the Sixers' intentional tank".
Embrace it. Relish the naiveté whereby a team who dedicates themselves to a multi-year rebuild, is somehow deemed to be tanking worse and less respectfully than another, who accidentally ran themselves into the ground the same year that they believed themselves to be contenders. Each new philosophy in sports will be ridiculed, criticized, and dissected by crusty, old, sports writers, and purists alike. Philadelphia will not always be on the cutting edge of sporting experimentation, but it is now.
Rejoice in that you have a captain at the helm whose faith in his own process is so passionate, that it mutes his ears to the country's myriad concerns on tanking policy in the league, forcing him further down the rabbit hole of advanced analytics. Swim in the draft picks, and even delve into the foreign prospects if you so choose –- they even include a 21-year-old, 6'10" forward stashed in Turkey, who can handle the ball and shoot threes.
The coaching staff brings a harmonious connection of analytical expertise, fresh off raising Houston to elite Western Conference status, and player-focused experience fostered in San Antonio, under the tutelage of the most team-focused, selflessly run organization in the league. The table is set. Be it remarkable or disastrous, embrace it.
