OKC takes a modest two game winning streak into Philly tonight to play the still league worse Sixers. At 9-59, the Sixers once again are the NBA’s worse team. The Sam Hinkie nightmare is close to being over in Philadelphia.
In December—the Sixers hired the very respected Jerry Colangelo to in essence start making the basketball decisions. Unless I’m reading this wrong I’d assume that means Sam Hinkie’s days of losing more games than any team in the league just to keep drafting flawed centers are over.
As I wrote earlier in the season, I grew up being a Sixer fan living in Oklahoma City. What Sam Hinkie has done as general manager is a virtual disgrace. The Colangelo decision was made basically because owners around the league urged NBA commissioner Adam Silver to do something in Philly because the credibility of the league was taking a hit because of Hinkie’s continued tanking with no tangible results being shown. Sixers fans wouldn’t be at all guilty of going over the top in filing a class action lawsuit against the Sixers claiming legal ground for restitution for actually paying money to watch this piece of shit dumpster fire.
At the time of Colangelo’s hiring, the Sixers were 1-21 and a combined 38-148 in two and a fourth seasons.
As Sixer fans, we collectively still wait for Joel Embiid to play a game in the NBA. We wonder if Hinkie blew it drafting Jahlil Okafor as a low character guy who can’t play defense. Nerlen Noels shows glimpses here and there, but the freak show continues in Philly.
In Colangelo, the Sixers get an executive who on four separate occasions has won the NBA Executive of the Year Award. Plus, he along with Coach K have been the face of the Team USA basketball.
Some were saying Hinkie would be the next Moneyball GM falling in the footsteps of Sam Presti at OKC. But here’s the difference, Presti actually knows how to draft basketball players and put a roster together–even though he still hasn’t put the right shooting guard alongside Durant and Westbrook since the Harden trade.
But with Colangelo now making the basketball decisions in the NBA’s fifth largest market it appears the days are winding down with Sam Hinkie and Sixer fans might start seeing some NBA level basketball again at some point down the road.
If OKC loses to this team tonight the season is effectively over.
There—that’s my preview on tonight’s game in Philly.