The resignation of Sixers GM Sam Hinkie on Wednesday night brought an end to one of the most controversial front office tenures the NBA has ever seen. Philadelphia went 47-195 in Hinkie’s time, its winning percentage decreasing in each of his three seasons. Now, it appears the task of rebuilding the Sixers will fall to Bryan Colangelo, whom the team is reportedly poised to hire as its new GM, and his father, Jerry Colangelo, the team’s chairman of basketball operations. See the fallout from Philly:
- Hinkie’s resignation shocked Sixers higher-ups, a league source told Pompey. Hinkie was with the team and other members of the organization for three hours, posed for the team picture and met with managing owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer for 90 minutes before dropping his bombshell of a resignation letter, Pompey relays. Members of the Sixers brass were keen on Hinkie’s knowledge of analytics and ability to manage the salary cap but found him lacking in other skills necessary for the GM job, so they met with him at times over the past three or four months about reducing his role and mitigating his shortcomings, according to Pompey. Those conversations heated up over the past two weeks, Pompey adds.
8:58am updates:
- Coach Brett Brown was a Hinkie hire, but his job is safe, a league source told Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). The Sixers extended Brown’s contract through the 2018/19 season shortly after Jerry Colangelo’s hiring in December.
- The Sixers were planning to announce after the season that Hinkie would be in charge of analytics and that they were bringing someone else into the front office, a league source told Tom Moore of Calkins Media (Twitter link). Sources told Pompey that the team asked Hinkie to take a lesser role to accommodate the hiring of Bryan Colangelo. Ownership thought Hinkie would accept this sort of arrangement, according to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
- Tension built between Hinkie and ownership in the months after the team hired Jerry Colangelo, league sources told John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com. The owners wanted the Colangelos to take the lead role in dealing with players and agents in free agency, but Hinkie thought he “had it covered,” Gonzalez hears.
- Hinkie stepped down without notifying his employees, who learned of his resignation via social media, several sources told Pompey for the same piece. Staff who worked under Hinkie were often frustrated about his lack of communication, Wojnarowski tweets. Hinkie was reluctant to trust anyone outside a small circle of confidants and employees he hired, team sources told David Aldridge of NBA.com.
Yeah , a nepotism hire who admitted to tanking. And ran the Raptors with bad trades and to a certain extent drafts. Thigh he gotta lucky with few players
Nepotism = Mediocrity
The rats take over. The Plan had merit, but now flip it over to the nitwits who will prioritize a couple extra meaningless wins over building a legit contender. A shame.
How is this a surprise? They have been chipping away at his responsibilities and power on the team. We all thought they’d fire him at the end of the season. He just beat them to the punch. He has lade some savvy trades and I fully expected Jimmy Bulter and some quality FA signings this offseason bc if you get Simmons youre set to just go for it in 2016-17.
There were stories shortly after the Sixers hired Jerry Colangelo that other teams were calling him instead of Hinkie to talk about deals. The transfer of power probably got to be too much for Hinkie to accept.
Its similar to the Howie v Chip Kelly mess. Its like how much can you take? But apparently he was not a great communicator between GMs and Agents. Yet he still made good moves like how he dumped MCW and got the Lakers pick which will come into play next year most likely. If somehow the Lakers pick comes out 4th they could walk away with Simmons/Ingram and the top G in the draft depending on who you like more of Brown/Dunn/Murray and “the process” would be a success.