
Sports have become woven into American society; they are a part of the culture. Names like Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady have become more recognizable in American society than most of the country’s former presidents. But, players are merely employees to the team’s front office, which is comprised of many different positions outside of those on the playing field with an agenda of ensuring that their organization remains is profitable, amongst these off the court positions stands perhaps the organization’s most important player, a team’s General Manager.  Usually a team’s General Manager in is content with being just that, a General Manager in a professional sport.  It’s typically a very well-paying job and many who reach this high step on the ladder of the sport’s world do whatever they can to stay there. This typically involves making sure their squad is relevant enough in the winning department to a point where their team remains profitable. But former Philadelphia 76ers’ General Manager Sam Hinkie took a different approach towards his position in the NBA. A position that outweighed short-term gains for long-term ones. Hinkie particularly took notice in the league’s annual draft and the amount of talent it annually produced.  Teams who end the NBA season with the worst records are in turn rewarded with a chance to select near the top of the league’s draft to acquire new talent in the form of young, talented players beginning their NBA careers through the league’s lottery process.  Hinkie saw this as the best way to acquire a team able to compete for championships, but his vision came at a price. During his time as the GM in Philadelphia the Sixer’s boasted a record of 51-195, which included the Sixer’s falling one game short of breaking the NBA’s all-time loss record by going 10-72 during the 2015-2016 NBA season.  That nearly record breaking season became Hinkie’s last stand as he “resigned” in April of 2016. Hinkie observed the NBA with a wider lens than most of his GM counterparts. He lost a lot of basketball games but in doing so injected hope into a franchise that could use it, giving the city of Philadelphia a previously vacant sense of direction towards their basketball team. Sam Hinkie brought a “Process” to the table, infused with analytics and an extremely intellectually based forward-thinking approach, the Sixer’s former GM completely challenged every traditional ideal instilled in the NBA and he lost his job for it, and it might’ve worked.  

Fans are passionate about their sports teams, feeling the sting of every loss and the high of every win as if they themselves were players.  These types of emotions are the backbone of the highly profitable world of professional sports. Professional sports have the ability to connect its surrounding community, when fans gather from all over the area to root for the same team, it creates a sense of togetherness. What better city to represent this type of local togetherness, then the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia.  The blue-collar city of Philadelphia is home of the 4th largest media market in the United States of America and many of the area’s residents put a tremendous amount of emotion into the city’s professional sports team. Philadelphia has always had a tough time winning sports championships. in the modern era of sports and sport’s media coverage it’s kind of been their thing, with only one mere championship to boast about in the last 37 years, it’s been a rough going for the city’s passionate fan base. The Philadelphia Eagles, perhaps the cities most treasured sport’s team, provide a perfect example of the cities struggles. The team recently went through a period of much success in the early 2000s under Head Coach Andy Reid.  The Eagles reached 5 NFC Championship games from 2000-2010, which is certainly quite an impressive feat for NFL team.  However, the Birds only advanced to the Super Bowl on one of these occasions in 2004, and ultimately lost to the New England Patriots, leaving the Franchise’s total Super Bowl victories at whopping total of 0. (PFR) Philadelphia’s tendency to remain hopeful and eager, despite the city’s track record has slowly created a culture of anger and impatience throughout the city’s fan base. Many Philadelphians have been waiting their whole life for their version of Michael Jordan, a player that would carry them to the promise land, to championships.  They were not however waiting for Samuel J. Hinkie.

Sam Hinkie was brought into Philadelphia after the team’s 2012-2013 season to be the GM of the city’s basketball team. Hinkie came to the city with a plan, a plan that involved both patience and trust, two things Philadelphians usually don’t have with their teams’ respective front offices. However, Hinkie was different, a self-proclaimed man with a plan, a new plan that the NBA has never really seen before. A plan that made sense to many on a rational level, but remained conflicting on an emotional one.  Hinkie’s plan, later dubbed “The Process”, was fundamentally rooted in losing, a lot.  Hinkie acquired a Sixer’s team who were described by many as “mediocre”. (Torre 2) A team that in the year previously traded a large part of their roster for a superstar center in Andrew Bynum, a player that many believed would be able to take the Sixer’s over the top before the all-star suffered an injury while bowling prior to the season, an injury that not only sidelined him for the Sixer’s season, but for the rest of his NBA career. (Torre 3) The trade that returned the Sixer’s a center who would never play a game of basketball for the team costed them much of the talent the team had previously owned, leaving them with an extremely underwhelming roster. This is when the team’s front office decided to move towards a new direction altogether which led them to hire 35-year-old Sam Hinkie to become the team’s new General Manager. Upon being hired Hinkie immediately began to address the team’s major problem, their profanity of being stuck in what many refer to as the NBA’s “purgatory”. (Ballard 5) 

The lack of parity in the NBA has been evident to fans, players, and coaches alike for many years now.  Before every season begins most NBA followers have a good sense for how the league shapes out and this sense is rarely disrupted by many surprises, especially at the top.   It is statistically proven that the NBA has achieved much less parity over the years than the other 3 North American professional sports. (Rockerbie 287) One theory experts use to explain this lack of competition is the law of large numbers. The law states the great amount of scoring attempts taken in the NBA versus the other 3 major sports, greatly reduces the influence of random outcomes which causes the results of individual games to be determined by a team’s raw talent. (Rockerbie 293) Couple this law of large numbers with a playoff system that requires a team to win 4 separate 7-game series to win an NBA championship, the better team nearly always wins. Teams in the NBA simply cannot rely on luck or circumstance; they must rely on having a superior crop of players. The need to own a more talented roster in turn gives a need to own “elite” players. The NBA recognizes this, their business model reflects this notion, relying little on parity, but instead on the promotion of the league’s individual superstar players playing against each other in highly promoted matchup games. (Rockerbie 287) While the league’s approach is certainly different than the other 3 major professional sports, its formula has proven to be successful, the promotion of its superstar players outweighs the mediocrity present in the league, despite owning the lowest rate of league-wide competition amongst the 4 major North American sports, from 1990 to 2011 the league continued to grow at an annual average growth rate of 15.3% (Rockerbie 287) These factors make the need for superstars in the NBA quite evident.  It’s what make players like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant almost seem larger than the league itself.  Teams with superstars win, and teams without them don’t, and in a market where free agents are incentivized by teams with the ability to help them win now, team’s that lack this type of superior talent are constantly stuck in the middle ground searching for direction.

Knowing all of these factors and realizing the present state of his newly acquired franchise, Sam Hinkie decided to “zig while others zagged”, by making his own path. (Ballard 6) Hinkie kicked things off by trading the team’s starting Point guard, Jrue Holiday, to the New Orleans Pelicans in return for rookie Nerlens Noel.  Hinkie then drafted Elfrid Payton, knowing the Orlando Magic, the team drafting after them desperately wanted. (Honksalo 3)The Magic then drafted Dario Saric, a player Sam Hinkie had much interest in, although Saric was set on not coming over to the NBA from his Turkish league for two years, Hinkie realized his potential value even though would not be immediate. (Honksalo 3) The Sixers then made a trade with the Magic which included in the two team’s swapping their recently acquired draft choices, resulting in Hinkie acquiring the player that he wanted while also convincing Orlando to give the Sixers one of their future first round draft picks to sweeten the deal. (Honksalo 3) That was the 2015 draft, Dario Saric is now the favorite for the NBA’s 2016-2017 Rookie of the Year award. (Nuebeck 1) Hinkie gained a reputation around the league for winning every trade he was a part of one GM credited this to Hinkie’s certainty and patience, it was seen as intimidating across the league, Hinkie knew what he wanted and he was willing to wait for it. (Ballard 6) This is not seen as the norm in pro sports, where one exec is even quoted saying “To be honest, most of us are just plowing through.” (Ballard 7) Hinkie’s certainty and patience were both personified in what became the Sixer’s new campaign slogan – “Trust the Process”.  Hinkie’s plan was as simple as it was complex.  Along with the deals and roster moves made, Hinkie fundamentally believed in the importance of the NBA draft, and the unparalleled level of skill that could potentially be drawn from it.  In the case of the NBA, taking a player high in the draft is often based from the estimates of the person’s skill. (Staw & Hoang 1) This type of value could then be put to use in two different ways; as either a long-term building block for the franchises’ future or as a highly valued trading asset.  The importance of a player’s original draft position being an asset in trade situations cannot be undervalued, for even in instances where a player drafted in a high position doesn’t necessarily pan out, the NBA tends to perceive a faulty parallel between a player’s draft order and his future performance, particularly when making trades. (Staw & Hoang 10) In an attempt to realize the draft’s full potential, the Sixer’s made strategic, long-term draft choices such as Joel Embiid and Dario Saric, that other teams passed on due to their lack of immediate availability. In 2013, Joel Embiid was a player with a highly valued skillset, seen as many as a player destined to be picked number one overall, however an injury suffered towards the end of his freshman year in college that would result in him missing the upcoming NBA season became a red flag for many team’s when Embiid slipped was bypassed by the first two teams selecting in the draft, Hinkie had no problem whatsoever acquiring the 7’0 Center as the 3rd overall pick in the 2013 Draft. Dario Saric was viewed in a similar light to other front offices around the league, Saric was a player with high upside that teams overlooked due to his determination to play out the remaining two years of his Turkish league contract. In both cases Hinkie displayed his commitment to practice patience by accepting these high-risk, high-reward players that other teams had passed on due to their lack of immediate avaliability, hoping one would eventually emerge as one of the Superstars the rest of the NBA so dearly covets.

Sam Hinkie’s plan may come off as drastic, and many people have received it as such.  A seemingly outlandish plan which was rooted in creating a losing culture that would set team up for a chance at acquiring elite level talent year after year.  The common term used for this type of strategy is known as tanking, and tanking is not new to the NBA, not by a long stretch.  In 1985, the Houston Rockets changed the NBA forever when they pulled off a massive mid-season tank job that began midseason while the Rockets held a semi respectable record with of 20-26 before bottoming out completely bottoming out in their remaining games and finishing with a record of 29-53. (Webb 4) While this record allowed the Rockets to draft University of Houston superstar and future NBA Hall of Famer, Hakeem Olajuwon, the means by which Olajuwon was attained were so blatant the NBA was forced to implement a Draft Lottery in hopes no one would ever purposely play such bad basketball again. (Webb 4) But the tanking didn’t stop, in more recent history the 1996-1997 San Antonio Spurs, who are thought of by many as the class of the NBA, sat out their best player, NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson, in the middle of a lost season which allowed them to amass the 2nd worst record in NBA, with their eyes set on acquiring college stand-out and future NBA Hall of Famer, Tim Duncan. (Webb 3) In that same year, the Boston Celtics also had their eyes set on Mr. Duncan. The Celtics posted a franchise worst 15-67 record in their own attempt to acquire the college big man, the Celtics plan ended up failing as the lottery handed them with the 3rd pick in that year’s draft.  (Webb 3) Tanking was and is by no means a fool proof plan, but Hinkie believed with the right amount of patience and determination, the potential of winning the draft lottery could be maximized especially when the alternative plan is hopeless mediocrity in the parity deprived NBA.

When Hinkie gained control, he chose to give the Sixers a direction in an effort to break away from the endless cycle of mediocrity the team had been stuck in for many years, he envisioned a sort of upward facing parabola, one that would need to bottom out for a little bit before picking it back upwards toward the ultimate goal, NBA championships.  He made no attempt to hide what he was doing and by using “Trust the Process” as his main campaign slogan during his reign, he gave the fans a sense of newfound hope. Many felt the plan was logical and were willing to be patient through the losing if it were to eventually return a Professional sports championship to the city of Philadelphia, a feat that has only been accomplished once in the last 34 years. But these types of drastic plans never come without critics and Hinkie had his fair share of them throughout Philadelphia and across America alike. While many pointed out the flaws in his plan Hinkie remain unfazed. He rarely made himself available to the media, preferring to keep both his personality and overall agenda out of the ears and eyes of the public and the rest of the NBA alike, a similar approach to the one of Bill Belichick, current New England Patriots head coach whom Hinkie is a big fan of, uses in the NFL. (Ballard 24) But this approach may have been one of the main downfalls of Hinkie, Belichick can get away with these sort of actions because of his proven track record of winning. If Bill Belichick were to have gone 4 straight seasons at the bottom of the NFL the Boston media would not stand for the type of behavior he gets away with today.  That’s what winning does, it creates respect and while many were on board with Hinkie’s plan, America is still a “what have you done for me lately” country not necessarily a “what will you do in the future”. It’s a country relies on both results and narratives, especially in the world of sports which at the end of the day is an entertainment business, and when Hinkie couldn’t produce either of these, it rubbed many people the wrong way.  In the middle of the 2015-2016 NBA season, the league’s front office pressured Sixers ownership to hire Jerry Colangelo, a longtime NBA GM, to run the show with Hinkie. (Ballard 2)  Sixers ownership acted accordingly, forcing Hinkie to take on a lesser role. (Ballard 2) Hinkie responded by unleashing a 13-page manifesto towards the Sixers front office, littered with quotes from the likes of Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, and Abraham Lincoln all boldly proclaiming his resignation. (Hinkie) A resignation that sent waves throughout the Philadelphia and NBA community alike. (Ballard 1) Waves that might not stop going for a long time.

Most of the criticism Hinkie received would come directly after this resignation, the anti-Hinkiites in the sports media were out in droves calling his process a failure. Critics alluded to the lack of wins creating a culture of losing, which they claimed stinted the team’s younger players’ overall development. (Sharp 2) But Hinkie’s plan would prove to extend longer than his employment as he himself quoted in his resignation letter “Jeff Bezos says that if Amazon has a good quarter it’s because of work they did 3, 4, 5 years ago—not because they did a good job that quarter.”  (Hinkie 4) Sam Hinkie’s followers are still believing in “The Process” even without their leader.  Hinkie, probably unintentionally, has emerged as a cult leader in Philadelphia, a figure that challenged old ideals with an intention of breaking away from the narratives which contain heroes and villains and character arcs which Hinkie says comes from the “lizard parts of our brains”, believing they are too simplistic and in turn hide truth and fact.  (Ballard 7) Hinkie is a forward-thinking man that may be too ahead of his time, or at least the NBA’s time.  After his stint in Philadelphia he moved to Silicon Valley to be with, as he puts it “like-minded people” (Ballard 4) Hinkie believes that intellect, not class is the new driver in society. (Ballard 4) He’s emerged as a figure unlike anything the sports world has ever seen before, almost like the Steve Jobs of basketball, and his plan reflected this, as Sports Illustrated writer Chris Ballard worded Hinkie’s approach as such, “He did the kind of stuff people talk about late at night after three beers, because theoretically it just might work, but no one actually does.” That was Sam Hinkie and in a short 3 and a half years he turned the league on his head before the NBA finally had enough and kicked him out.

But that’s not the end of Hinkie’s story.  Since leaving Philadelphia Hinkie’s cult following has become stronger than ever.  Joel Embiid, whom Hinkie drafted in 2014, has emerged as a transcendent talent in the league and has given himself the nickname “The Process”. Although a slight meniscus tear in his right knee shortened his long-awaited Rookie year campaign, the big man posted historical numbers in the brief amount of time he spent on the court. Embiid averaged a staggering 28.7 points per 36 minutes during his rookie campaign, a statistic higher than that of every other rookie in NBA history whose name is not Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA Hall of Famer who once scored 100 points in a single game. (Stein 1) Though Embiid’s injury history may be concerning, the recent slight tear in his meniscus is common injury for NBA players that possesses an extremely high rate of those who suffer this type of tear, to end up making a full recovery.  Though Embiid’s injury struggles were not ideal, they allowed the Sixer’s to continue down their path of losing in an attempt to gain more assets to eventually compete for an NBA Championship.  Embiid’s injury, along with Dario Saric’s 2-year hiatus in the Turkish league allowed the Sixer’s to continue with their plan of tanking. These seemingly disappointingly occurrences proved to be a main catalyst of the Sixers finishing their 2015-2016 season with the worst record in the NBA which also happened. Which in correlation meant that  they had finished with the best chance to gain the NBA’s #1 overall pick in the upcoming draft lottery.  The season was seen by the league as an unprecedented attempt of tanking, which ultimately caused the NBA to intervene in Hinkie’s plan by pressuring the team’s owners to get rid of their General Manager Sam Hinkie and to instead hire one of the league’s more old-school, traditional GM’s former Phoenix Sun’s GM Jerry Colangelo, this decision resulted in Hinkie losing the complete control he previously had, which then led him to leaving the Sixer’s organization before his plan could be fully carried out.  

About a month and a half after Hinkie’s resignation the Sixer’s struck gold in the NBA’s lottery and won the first overall pick in the draft lottery. (Ballard 6) The team bore the fruit given to them by Hinkie and selected 19-year-old basketball prodigy Ben Simmons, a player many experts have hailed as the best basketball player to come out of the draft in years including NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, who believes Simmons is the best NBA prospect to come into the league since 2- time MVP and 3-Time NBA Champion, LeBron James. (Buha 1) On top of their luck in gaining the elite level prospect Ben Simmons, Dario Saric the “Euro-stash” that many fans believed would never come over from Europe has since emerged as the new favorite for the 2017 NBA Rookie of the Year Award. (Nuebeck 1) Since being pushed out, a slew of Hinkie’s moves began to bear fruit from the roots he laid down, raising his cult following and making him appear as a Christ-like figure in Philadelphia, sacrificing his own job by carrying out his vision which he believed would eventually benefit the city as a whole.  Even with Hinkie gone, there are still frequently “Trust the Process” chants at Sixer’s games. (Ballard 2) While the old media markets in Philadelphia are still eerie to give credit to Hinkie, new mediums have rallied in his support. The blog Liberty Ballers and the podcast Rights to Ricky Sanchez are two popular media sources for a younger generation of Sixers fans, in this 21st century time of rapid technological growth and progressive ideals alike, the timing seems right. (Eskin) Hinkie’s ability to break molds and change the way people think has rarely been seen in the world of sports, a world still dominated by “lizard brain” narratives and a win now mentalities.  Upon resignation, his “Process” was dubbed as a failure, but the events that have recently taken place have begun to change this simplistic narrative that Hinkie desperately tried to detach himself from. (Ballard 7)  Sam Hinkie brought a “Process” to the table- infused with analytics and an extremely intellectually based forward-thinking approach, the Sixer’s former GM boldly challenged every traditional ideal instilled in the NBA and he lost his job for it, and it might’ve worked.
