Sam Hinkie Pulls His Chute

Good Night, Sweet Prince

So Sam Hinkie gave his resignation letter to the Sixers tonight, as aged new de facto king Jerry Colangelo completed his palace coup with the nepotism slide of Bryan Colangelo to the front office.

In the long run, of course, this is not exactly a major tragedy, or even that much of a surprise. While Hinkie has shown an incredible ability to collect assets, those assets haven't turned into watchable hoop, let alone anything but an incredible amount of on the court losing. There hasn't been a 2-way point guard on the roster in his entire tenure, and there is no more important position in the NBA in the current era. For all we know, NBA commissioner Adam Silver more or less ordered this move, because the Sixers have been an active hole for every other team's marketing efforts when it comes to selling a home game. Just because the system only really rewards corruption does not mean that you can be honest about it.

But man alive, what a fallow field the Colangelos walk into here. They've got assets all over the place, especially if the medical work that's been done to Joel Embiid comes to fruition. They've got a ridiculous number of assets to move, and decades of elbow grease from working the league. They've also never scared anyone with winning championships or being anything more than entertaining frauds, so unlike Hinkie, there's no problem going back to New Orleans, Sacramento, Milwaukee or any of the other places that got fleeced by Hinkie.

Here's my problem with this... the injustice of it all, really. And not just to the old GM. Hinkie walked into an absolute train wreck of a situation, where the only assets were draft picks and the fact that the owners and fan base would sign off on anything that actually smelled like a plan. The Process was exactly that, and the reason why there's still a fan base. No matter what you might think of the potential of Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric, Embiid, Jahlil Okafor and the rest of the Sixers roster, you have to admit it's better than than the Spencer Hawes / Evan Turner / Thaddeus Young flotsam that he inherited. Having sifted through so much fertilizer, Hinkie and the fan base deserved to see the green shoots.

Oh, and two other points that just plain rankle, at least in the short term.

1) There's no chance that Hinkie gets another gig after this. Having more or less executed the coup here, there's no way that Silver and the NBA will let this man near another front office. Or any organization that will be able to pitch this kind of pain to their fan base. And if the Sixers do get good, it will be all about the Colangelos, not Hinkie.

2) The fact that this will give aid and comfort to elements of the truly loathsome Philadelphia sport media is, honestly, something that makes me nearly want to give up my fandom to the laundry. My need to focus away from traditional media and sites is going to have to border on exceptional discipline... and there's going to be, likely, years of utter bullspit tossed on Hinkie's grave as the team wins multiple factors against what the old regime won.

Neat trick, really... to make me resent the franchise winning more games and becoming more watchable. Mostly because it makes me seriously question the ownership, who, please remember...

Enabled the Doug Collins group that went all-in for Freaking Andrew Bynum before giving the keys to Hinkie, and pretty much have shown their hand now as having no clue, or no discipline to see a plan to completion.

Maybe I should just go all-in on my Warriors love, right?