Breaking -- The human race has waived Josh Smith: 2014-15 regular season thread part 2

its good everyone thinks that cause they are prob gonna keep at it

i wld not want ilh to be upset abt the fate of the 2014-15 milwaukee bucks, also they are so far out of the lottery they wld have to try really hard to miss the playoffs

i keep forgetting that this hinkie stuff has only been going on like two years so not too bad. getting anything for mcw is a plus so the 'omg the sixers are rebuilding again' stuff didn't bother me, noel has apparently looked good, trading mcdaniels is a shame but more of a result of a prior fuckup and hinkie getting outplayed by that agent. ppl were like 'i do. not. like that trade.' about it but someone on the bs report speculated that the agent made it clear they intended to play the market and yeah the sixers could match but it would fuck up working relationships or whatever so they accepted the fuckup and moved on. i still haven't really seen much to indicate hinkie has any real eye for talent though, it's not like he's been cherry picking the d-league or undervalued assets on other teams and not finding some way to exploit that unused cap space doesn't make me think he's real savvy though that might be due to the owner or something. still one more year of this and i'd be thinking 'ok do you have an actual vision for what type of team you're trying to create or are you just plugging in the best of whatever comes by and hope the whole thing coheres somehow'.

admittedly i did sorta think taking MCW was an inexplicable midseason course-correction to tankachusetts for a second, but with this many wins already its m/l pointless

im not sold on hinkie but hes def made some good moves, trading jrue holiday for noel + pick, trading mcw for the lakers pick, grabbing kj mcdaniels in the second round, taking an injured otherwise consensus #1 pick in embiid is likely gonna be a monster grand slam home run, i think saric will be good too, also the strategy of total tank was prob right for the situation

who know if he can put it all together or not, the aspect of taking injured players so they dont play and make the team better is prob overrated since rookies p much always suck anyway, but who knows maybe thats just a media concoction and has more to do with the fact that he has the leeway to be bad for a while more than part of the plan to be bad

convincing the owners to let him do this is in itself p impressive

on the other side of the ledger hes a business school attending ted talk watching bozo http://deadspin.com/the-76ers-are-run-by-a-ridiculous-ted-humping-moron-1686613279

not finding some way to exploit that unused cap space doesn't make me think he's real savvy though

― balls, Wednesday, February 25, 2015 5:32 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he has fwiw exploited the cap space via facilitating other teams trades/contract dumps in exchange for second round picks, which seems to have been his plan all along

i guess if u get like every pick in the second round u will prob find a good player

the whole thing yday about how they only signed thomas robinson to get to 90% of the cap and avoid the salary floor penalty (aka paying more to largely underpaid young players) seemed pretty scummy

well he also got thomas robinson

i mean like it makes no sense to to it just out of spite

how do you build a culture that free agents want to be a part of? Anyone with space can offer a free agent a max deal. They have a great coach and a good young core but how do you convince a young star that hinkie isn't going to trade him a year later for forty second rounders.

u build a culture free agents want to b part of by either a. winning a lot b. giving them more money than anyone else c. having yr team be in a cool city

d. being in their home town if theyre some sort of precious fool

so how do they (a) win next year

so they have to dump all their scrill into the new salary cap on whoever the marquee is then / hope some prime baller is from philadelphia.

philly hasn't really been a blockbuster FA destination since moses malone

so.......their only hope is A then? and only by sometime in 2021 or so

their plan at the moment seems to be to develop their own talent

d. being in their home town if theyre some sort of precious fool

this doesn't look too hot

http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/high_schools.cgi?country=US&state=PA

i mean signing a super star free agent is not the only way to win in the nba folks!

tho tbf it is one way that has been demonstrated previously to work, i'm not sure the same can be said abt hinkieball

...yet

moreyball is a good model, obviously. but they need to find that harden analog and make the deal. who would that be?

guys u realize they have one potential superstar on their roster already and are in line for a very high draft pick again this year

i mean drafting yr own superstars is actually a thing sucessful teams have done before

also trading for them

i mean how ever u get them what matters is that u have them

who should they get though

just like everyone? i guess

get all the players

yeah i could be wrong about him being savvy not exploiting the cap, i don't really pay much attention to the sixers, i just know that they have or have had space and i haven't heard ppl moaning that they're doing something that's a TRAVESTY and prompting whispers that adam silver could be open to changing the system.

it's sorta weird ppl are so outraged by tanking now, it's not like it's a new phenomenon and it was arguably worse and more effective when the #1 pick was some college senior who could come in and very probably make the allstar game the first year and instantly make yr team 25 wins better.

i think the "tear everything down until you get a superstar" method has been overrated, the bucks already have two top 3 picks i dunno if they need another one. i do buy into the idea that there's value in your younger players learning how to win over the course of a few years.

still i'm pretty on board with hinkie, i can't fault anything he's done except for losing out on mcdaniels because he tried to fuck him over on his first contract

also this is sort of nitpicky but they're gonna get a top 2 pick in a draft where the consensus top 2 prospects are centers after already drafting 2 centers but i guess they'll cross that bridge....

if they get okafor i think hinkie will end up looking just fine

imo winning is primarily comprised of literal basketball skills that can be learned outside of the actual act of winning, the obvious current successful tanking story is the thunder who had three top four picks in three years and tanked so hard that they actually played durant a the two a lot his rookie season, no approach works all the time in the nba (lol zero sum game) but i do think tanking was prob the way to go w where the sixers were at

suspect if the sixers get a top two pick theyll consider trading down and taking russell or mudiay, emiid still a better prospect than okafor or towns imo

tho who know maybe theyll keep stockpiling centers! (noel prob a forward tho)

i'm interested to see what happens when the sixers are winning about 35-40 games on the raw talent of embiid or okafor or someone and he has to assemble actual basketball players into an actual team but for now he seems fine

yeah agreed see if he can put together the right supporting cast, right coach, make all the little moves

i like okafor better than embiid especially considering injury history

the teams that tanked and shot to the top are much more rare than teams that just assembled parts naturally and congealed over a period of time

okafor obvs gonna be a monstrous offensive player and is more of a sure thing but embiids defensive potential where okafor doesnt have much is what puts him over the top for me, def more of a risk tho

the teams that tanked and shot to the top are much more rare than teams that just assembled parts naturally and congealed over a period of time

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, February 25, 2015 7:15 PM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ehhh i mean i think "assembled naturally" comprises any number of approaches where youre basically saying all the other ways of assembling a team put together are better than this one way, also its situational, some ways other teams did it were prob not available to the sixers, celtics tanked to put together the big three, spurs tanked to get duncan

its a legit way to get good players, and in some situations is the best way

celtics also tanked to get duncan lol wha whaaaa

it's sorta weird ppl are so outraged by tanking now, it's not like it's a new phenomenon and it was arguably worse and more effective when the #1 pick was some college senior who could come in and very probably make the allstar game the first year and instantly make yr team 25 wins better.
--balls

it's true it has definitely been around for a longass time but the way hinkie is doing it smacks of flying by the seat of one's pants for guaranteed job security, as well as miserliness to an obscene degree beyond just savvy spending/nonspending (the kj deal, the salary floor thing) that just makes me feel gross

gross feeling could also just stem from imagining hinkie's smiling face tbrr

ya this has to be the most extreme tank job ever, also ppl been mad abt tanking tho more the other kind where teams try to lose individual games at the end of the season usually not playing their best player to improve draft position rather than this kind which is done by the gm instead of the coach

breaking theres a leak in the ceiling in atlanta

other diff (which may be subjective, other ppl seemed not to be as bothered) that philly openly tanked on the court in full view of cameras immediately after that fucking MCW players tribune story, whereas other bad teams that are rebuilding or will have to are just playing poorly, not actively trying to lose or openly not giving a shit