I'm Unhappy to See "The Process" End for the Sixers

It's Been Fun...

The NBA rewards two things- greatness and absolute failure. Being a fifth or sixth seed in the playoffs means you stay a fifth or sixth seed. To become an elite, contending for a title type of team, you have to pick high in the draft, and/or have lots of cap room to sign multiple major free agents. If you already have that kind of talent, you are contending. If you are terrible, you probably have high picks and money. If you're just good or mediocre? You aren't going anywhere.

Sam Hinkie got lots of things wrong, but he at least got that part right. He took over the Sixers in a complete mess, coming off of the Bynum disaster, and he attempted to build a durable contender. He got lots of things wrong in his personnel choices, but he was right to assume the team needed a gutting out to ever get back to contention. They were a borderline playoff team as long as they kept borderline players around, and he recognized you can't win that way. Sam Hinkie was right about that.

Did he get other things wrong? He certainly didn't need a roster as bad as the one he put together this year to contend for the top pick. It's arguable on all of his draft choices as to whether or not they were the right pick. Did he get enough for Michael Carter-Williams? There are lots of "what if's" to talk about. Clearly, nothing Hinkie has done so far has proven out perfect. It's easy to question his evaluation of talent, but you do have to remember that much of the "talent" the Sixers have is still very young.

I'm fearful of the Colangelo era that is coming ahead. I believe Jerry Colangelo was sent to Philadelphia by the NBA to make the team "good" again. The NBA wants the Sixers to try and be a playoff team, even if that means getting there before they have a star that gives them a chance to excel there. I'm fearful that the goal will become getting in the playoffs, even if that means mid-round picks and a lack of cap space for stars. I do not want to see this team stuck in "sixth seed hell" after going through these couple of awful years.

Sam Hinkie put some of the worst basketball teams we've all ever seen on the court. He could have signed a couple of adequate basketball players and put together a 20-25 win team some of these years, but he didn't. No one enjoyed his tenure as GM of the Sixers. On the other side of that coin, Hinkie leaves the Sixers with about $50 million in cap space and up to four draft picks in the first round this year. He does not leave the Sixers in the purgatory they were in when he got here. They're just bad right now. I do worry that his successors will not be patient enough to see the process through, or effective enough to go get a star now. We shall see.

Ish Smith? Not Into This Ish....

The Philadelphia 76ers are 1-30. They're 0-18 on the road, which is absolutely putrid. As bad as it is, I'm saddled in to ride it out, hoping to land the top pick, get a star, and begin to be an acceptable basketball team again. In other words, I get that they have to be bad to be good again, and I'm accepting this is how it is. Just put the steaming pile of garbage on the court and let's get through this.

I get how bad Tony Wroten looked in his first couple of games back, but I still considered him one of the better talents on this pathetic roster. I thought they'd maybe be able to trade him later and get something, even if it wasn't much. Instead they just cut him, after trading for Ish Smith of the Pelicans. They traded two second round picks for a player who's so good that they let him go in the off-season. We gave up picks to get a really mediocre player. We also cut a player just coming back from injury, at his lowest value. This is the definition of bad front office work.

People would like to blame Sam Hinkie, and that's fine, but I fear this is the first of many Jerry Colangelo "respectability" moves. You should read "respectability" as mediocrity, which is hell in the NBA, a team that "contends" to win some games. I'm in the camp that I really don't want to watch a six, seven, or eight seed team in a season or two, that is where basketball dreams go to die. Getting an Ish Smith maybe helps you win a few more games this season, which is what the NBA owners would like to see, but really does nothing to help the Sixers build a championship contender in a few seasons. I don't want "respectability" moves on this roster. I want them to stink however long it takes to get a player or five that can bring a championship here. Yes, this is brutal to watch, and sure they stink, but I'd rather be trying to win championships than win a few more games. I really hope this isn't the beginning of a trend where we try to "get a little better" right now. That does nothing for me.

Stop Stopping "The Process," NBA

I have one fear about the Philadelphia 76ers, and one fear alone- in five years we'll be watching a seventh seeded Sixers team lose in the first round of the playoffs for the third straight year. That might sound ridiculous for someone who's team is 1-27, but it's the most rational reaction to how bad this team is. I have sat through a several season tank now, one that I have listened to the reasoning behind, and understood, and all I ask is that it ends where we want it- a real contender.

Being a decent NBA team is the NBA's version of hell. The owners and commissioner's office created that, they wanted that, and the Sixers took them at their word. You are either a championship contender or you want to be as bad as possible, most of the time. If you are a fifth to eight seed in the NBA for more than a year or two, you are basically wasting everyone's time. They created a league where two and three stars are supposed to team up on contending teams and try to win championships. They created a league where the draft lottery is the place to find your superstar and build a contender. They created a salary cap driven league, where who your teammates are and where you are located matter more to free agents than raw dollars (because they are mostly the same). They even changed the rules and the refereeing to benefit superstars (MJ, Kobe, LeBron), to make sure they would have this kind of a league. In other words, four years ago this was a team that was one game from the conference finals, a team that had made the playoffs as a lower-half seed pretty regularly for a few years, but hadn't had a true "superstar" since Allen Iverson, and had no shot to defeat LeBron's Heat even if they had won that game in Boston, so the Sixers realized they were a fraud contender, and blew the thing apart, and they were right to do that. My main point is this- the Sixers are bad, and should be bad, because the NBA created an incentive system to make them bad.

None of this is to say that any of what is happening at the Wells Fargo Center is good. As 538 recently wrote, the Sixers would be a bad expansion team at this point, which is embarrassing for a historically good franchise. The fact that they got worse this season should be alarming, and what alarms me more is the lack of pieces I consider to be a part of a future championship run that are currently on this team. I think Sam Hinkie is running out of time, and at least my patience, in his "process." I'm frankly not willing to wait until LeBron James' career is over to see a competitive team on the court. They need to start showing progress.

With that said, the NBA should not be stepping in the way they clearly are. Yeah, I know, Adam Silver denies that he is. I don't believe him at all. Jerry Colangelo showing up in Philadelphia along with Mike D'Antoni wasn't an accident. It didn't just happen this way. The NBA owners were not happy with how bad the Sixers situation was, and so they forced the Commissioner to step in. He pushed the Sixers to hire Colangelo, and Colangelo gave us D'Antoni. Maybe in the long run this is a good thing. Maybe it's not. The main point is that the NBA shouldn't be meddling in a situation they created. The Sixers are gaming the system- the system they created.

Should this be going on? Probably not. If the NBA doesn't like this though, they should change their system. They could create a need-based spending system, or eliminate their salary cap system they have. They could change the CBA altogether. They could eliminate the draft lottery and simply hand out picks based on records, giving the worst teams the leg up in getting the next great stars. They could change a lot of different things. Stopping teams from playing their own flawed system is not the way to fix this though.

Do the Sixers Still Trust the Process?

Last night, the Sixers lost a game by 51 points, at home. They are 1-20 on the season. Their star rookie has been in more bar-fights this season than the team has won games. Things are bad. They are really bad.

So yesterday afternoon, Sixers Managing Partner Josh Harris announced the team has hired Jerry Colangelo, a Hall-of-Fame executive, as the new Chairman of Basketball Operations. While General Manager Sam Hinkie is still the final word on personnel decisions, Colangelo will be a special advisor to Harris, making him essentially a second voice on the direction of the team. It's quite an indictment on where the team seems to be, and it calls into question the confidence in the front office.

It seems that this wasn't just the Sixers call. Reports are saying the Sixers were pushed into this move by a group of league owners who see the team as becoming an economic drag:

Owners routinely complained about the economic drag the 76ers were inflicting on the league as the revenues of one of the largest-market teams -- a franchise expected to contribute more robustly to league revenue-sharing -- sagged. For many teams, games featuring the starless and woeful 76ers as the visiting team have been the lowest-attended of the season, sources said.

This team is a real mess right now. Whether Colangelo is actually going to be in charge, advising, supporting, or whatever this deal is, this is a shake up in the making. The Sixers didn't think they'd really be this bad this season. Now they clearly want more voices in the room.

It's That Bad

The Sixers are 0-17. They are last in the very light Atlantic Division, the pretty light Eastern Conference, and in an NBA that encourages non-contenders to lose. The worst team, period, probably in all of professional sports. They are far worse than the MLB-worst, 99 loss Phillies. They are much worse than the pathetic, already quit for the season Eagles. They are worse than the non-contender Flyers. For reference though-

• They are one loss from tying the all-time worst NBA start of 0-18. 
• Their 27 straight losses going back to last year is a North American sports record losing streak. 
• They are the first team to start back-to-back seasons 0-16. 
• Their highly touted #3 overall pick, Jahlil Okafor, has made news this week for knocking a guy out at a Boston bar, having a gun pulled on him, and getting pulled over going 108 miles per hour.
• Their highly touted #3 overall pick from last year, Joel Embiid, hasn't played an NBA game yet.
• Isaiah Canaan is still the starting point guard on this team. Not just on the team, but starting. Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten haven't stepped on a basketball court yet.

So yeah, things are as bad as they seem. This team was never a playoff caliber team, but I did think we'd see the team pass the 20 win mark this year. That ain't happening. This team will be the worst team in the NBA by a lot. Even so, this year was about evaluating a few players who either could be cornerstones or role players in the future. Even by that standard, things are rough.

• Okafor's off-court issues are starting to become rather scary, while Nerlens Noel is still rather up-and-down. Neither has played really poorly, but i'm not sure they fit together. 
• Stauskas has had his ups-and-downs, but hasn't yet played quite up to a #8 overall pick.
• Guys like Jerami Grant and Robert Covington have had their moments, but Covington has battled injuries, and frankly these guys are only potential role players. 
• Marshall and Wroten haven't even stepped on a court yet.

Even with nothing really going right so far, it's important to not yet abandon all hope. The plan has always appeared to have been about next year's team showing improvement. They have four first round picks- their almost certain high lottery pick, the top-three protected Lakers pick, and the picks of Oklahoma City and Miami. Add onto that the arrival of Dario Saric, maybe Joel Embiid, and enough cap room to sign a major free agent or two, and the Sixers should have a much different roster next season.

Or that's what we're supposed to think. So far, not enough of the picks have panned out for me to say for sure this is going to work. I'm getting very nervous about Okafor off the court, and whether or not Embiid will ever be on it. I don't know if they can convince free agents to come here. It's hard to shake the stink of a team that is this disgraceful. I hope I'm being over pessimistic, but I have my doubts.

The Sixers Stink, but I Remain Hopeful

At 0-14, there's not much to get too happy about. Kendall Marshall, Robert Covington, and Tony Wroten haven't really played though, and while none of them is LeBron James, they would probably represent the third, fourth, and fifth best players on the current Sixers rosters, sandwiched between the Okafor/Noel front-court and Nik Stauskas. That's a lot of fire power to be missing, and the Sixers are not good enough to miss it and prosper. Not when their best two players haven't played two combined seasons in the NBA. Not when they don't have a starting point guard capable player. Not with the team they have right now.

So while I'd like to see them win a game, i'm paying more attention to the progression of Okafor and Noel, or Stauskas, at this point. It's about the younger guys turning into NBA starters and showing they can possibly grow into a title contender. I'm enthused by the play of both young big men so far, even if there are some serious questions on the offensive end-

The problem is it’s hard to evaluate Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor as a front line because of the terrible play around them. Make no mistake, they have not looked good together — when Okafor and Noel are on the court together, the Sixers have an offensive rating of just 80.7 points per 100 possessions, and they are getting outscored by 25.7 per 100. The spacing is terrible, but then again the Sixers’ spacing is terrible in general because of the lack of quality guard play and shooting.

Make no mistake, there's room for improvement. It's an open question if these two can play together or not, but it's only November and they really do have most of the season to show there is hope. Okafor leads all rookies in scoring, and frankly isn't getting enough credit because of the usual ridiculous New York over-hype around Kristaps Porzingis. Noel is a work in progress, but a good one on his own. I'm remaining hopeful here.

I'm also remaining hopeful because we have yet to see Joel Embiid or Dario Saric from last year's draft, because of the injuries this team has, and because of the four first rounders they possess in next year's draft. I absolutely have my doubts about "the plan," like most fans, but it hasn't yet really had a chance to be judged. Clearly the team is not as far along as I thought they were before the season started, and that is a concern, but there are 68 games left for this team to show something. I didn't want them in the playoffs yet, and clearly i'll get my wish. I just still believe we'll see some progress this season. 

Tough To Watch- The Sixers 0-10 Start

I thought it would be better than this. Sure, the Sixers have had a tough schedule so far, playing two games with Cleveland, a game with Chicago, San Antonio, Boston, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Utah and Toronto, all of whom are fairly good teams. Even so, I didn't think they would be 0-10. I did not think we were looking at another sub-20 win team. We may be though. Sure, there are injuries- no Marshall, Wroten, or Covington really so far. Even so, I thought they'd be better.

I'm sort of amazed, because I honestly thought that the addition of Jahlil Okafor would make a difference, and while he's been really good so far, it hasn't. I thought that Nerlens Noel's improvement would make a difference, and while he's a better player than last year, it hasn't. I thought Nik Stauskas would make a real difference providing a shooter, and while he's had his moments, it hasn't. I even had hopes of Carl Landry making a difference, but he hasn't. With all the new talent brought in, I thought this team would be closer to 30 wins. Nothing in their early play suggests that's possible.

This week's schedule brings in Dallas and Indiana, and sends the Sixers to Charlotte and Miami. The Sixers will be underdogs in all of these games. When December comes, they do get games with the likes of the Lakers, Knicks, Nets, and Pistons, but even in those, they will not really be a favorite. The reality is that they will win some games this season, particularly when Marshall, Wroten, and Covington are back playing, but they have given away ten shots at getting on the board. For this team to win 30 games now, they'd have to go 30-42 the rest of the way. I doubt that.

This season has been tough to watch so far. It certainly isn't living up to my hopes for it. This week could bring about a break in the cloudy start, or could be a continuation of a really tough start. Even so, I'm sure ticket sales are just about awful for this week's home games, and they really can't go on being this bad. This coming off-season they will have four first-round picks if all works out, hopefully Joel Embiid will finally start playing, and Dario Saric will hopefully arrive in Philadelphia. With all of those upgrades coming, the Sixers better put a better product on the court next season. Watching this level of basketball is tough to watch.

The Philadelphia 76ers Season Preview

Tonight when the Philadelphia 76ers take the court with the trendy pick to be good Boston Celtics, they will do so with a young, hungry squad that should show at least some signs of improvement in 2015-2016. Absolutely no one is picking them to contend for .500 or a playoff berth, but I think people would be disappointed if they aren't at least a little better than the 18-64 mark last season.

Jahlil Okafor is the big addition, an addition I panned as repetitive on draft night and now think was the greatest pick ever (stable opinions, I know). He provides the Sixers with an offensive presence in the paint that they have not had in quite some time. As his defensive game progresses, he could become a dominant big man. Nerlens Noel, last year's big addition, has the opposite issue. I expect him to dominate the paint defensively as a power forward this season, and we all hope that his offensive game continues to progress. They are the two most pivotal developmental pieces on this team, as their ability to mesh together and co-exist in the paint is crucial to this re-build working out.

The other really interesting addition to this squad is Nik Stauskas, the 8th overall pick in the 2014 draft. The former Michigan star did struggle as a rookie, but has plenty of promise, and time on this roster, to blossom yet. Christian Wood, a player who went from a potential first rounder to undrafted in the 2015 draft, also made the roster and intrigues me a lot. Kendall Marshall joined the team through free agency and Carl Landry through the trade that brought Stauskas over, both adding some veteran presence to this squad. Robert Covington is back and hopefully can build on a solid season last year, and Tony Wroten will return from his torn ACL soon as well. Isaiah Canaan will man the point while the Sixers let Marshall and Wroten heal. Jerami Grant is back and Richaun Holmes joins him in the front court. T.J. McConnell won the last guard spot on this team, while JaKarr Sampson and Hillis Thompson will be swingmen. Joel Embiid is on the roster and won't play a game.

Realistically, Boston and Toronto are probably better teams going into the season. The Sixers would do really, really well to finish third and maybe make the post-season. If they make the post-season though, they'd run right into a Cleveland, Chicago, Washington type of team who will run them out of the building and knock them out fast. This team is probably best served finishing between ninth and twelfth in the conference, but third in the division. That's really hopeful stuff though.

I see the Sixers going 29-53, which is extremely hopeful, but speaks to the belief I have in Okafor, Noel, and Stauskas blossoming this year. That would mark an 11 game improvement, and set them up in 2016-2017 to be a playoff team. If they actually do improve by 11 games, you could bet on an Okafor Rookie-of-the-Year campaign, and improvement up and down the roster. I think it's possible. We also shouldn't get too caught up in it quite yet either way.

The Sixers have four draft picks in the first round this coming June. Yes, four. So this should be the last year where the expectations aren't for the team to be playoff bound. For now though, hope to see an improved team that has young players developing into good NBA players- at least we hope.