Hinkie lovers, haters both have skewed views of Sixers
Sixers GM likes the fans' passion about his team, but wishes they were a bit more even-keeled.
SAM HINKIE hears the noise.
He reads the tweets.
He sees the stories that quote league insiders, three big ones in the past few days. They were well-sourced, well-written pieces. They cast his Sixers as a rudderless franchise, expressed the very tangible disdain for his slash-and-burn rebuilding process, and highlighted how indignant the old boys' network is at Hinkie's indifference to that old boys' network.
He even reads the outrageous comments posted at the ends of the stories.
"I see a lot of it. And I expected this," Hinkie said Tuesday. "If you're going to be innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood."
Few people on the sports scene are as misunderstood - or, rather, as not understood - as 37-year-old Sam Hinkie. Polarized Sixers fans have made this soft-spoken academic much larger than his actual life.
He is an object of a weird brand of worship by a tech-immersed "cult" - Hinkie's word. At the same time, he is the target of often aimless derision levied by an analog, anachronistic generation of plain-paper bottom-liners.
Wednesday in Boston will begin Hinkie's third season as general manager. He has never been more topical.
He has eroded some of the collateral he earned on his first draft night, when he traded All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday for what became three first-round picks.
Never before has a fan base in this city or any other been so stridently vocal, so vulgarly defiant, about something as nebulous as Hinkie's ever-evolving plan.
It is rare to come across a dispassionate, fair review of the Sixers' trajectory. That's mainly because the people who care to consider the league's worst team fall into two groups:
Hinkie Haters and Sons of Sam.
The Hinkie Haters occupy a bunker in which analytics are considered anathema; architecture around a superstar, ignored.
The Sons of Sam, who apparently are suburban postadolescents more familiar with the latest operating system than the latest offense, compose the Cult of Hinkie. The religion demands that every transaction be considered a crucial building block, perhaps necessitated by previous brilliant moves, because Hinkie, in his omniscience, is incapable of making anything but brilliant moves.
The Haters believe that humiliation should never build a team.
The Sons believe that an insultingly obvious "process" - lose a lot, hoard draft picks and, when they develop, ride atop the NBA forever - is the equivalent of slicing bread and splitting atoms.
The Haters view Hinkie's tanking as a violation of a public trust in which every professional team must try to win as many games as possible every season.
The Sons support their man with a chilling fanaticism, using reasoning in which logic often suspends itself, or, at least, contorts itself to suit the current contention.
Either group is necessarily wrong, or bad. Both are, simply, too much.
"I love the passion," Hinkie said. "Sometimes, I just wish they were more . . . "
Like you?
"Yes. I've always been told I'd make a terrible talk-radio show host . . . I'm the kiddie coaster."
Never too far up, never too far down.
Sam Hinkie doesn't see Sam Hinkie as demigod or demon; he sees Sam Hinkie as human.
Sometimes Hinkie hits; sometimes he misses.
The Holiday trade was brilliant, amplified by the drafting of point guard Michael Carter-Williams, a surprise Rookie of the Year winner in 2013-14. The 2014-15 season witnessed the emergence of Nerlens Noel, whose staunch character and unearthly talent make him a steal at the sixth slot (Noel missed 2013-14 season with a lingering knee injury).
It was a fine gamble to pick Joel Embiid with the third overall pick the next season; he has an unusually deep well of athleticism and strength for a 7-footer. However, Embiid's injury issues might make that pick a lodestone around Hinkie's neck, since Embiid, who is kind of a knucklehead, will miss a second straight season. Hinkie also turned part of the Noel trade into intriguing Croatian forward Dario Saric, who has a good contract in Turkey.
The fallout from the Embiid gamble will be lessened if Jahlil Okafor develops. Okafor, the most polished center to come out of college in years, fell into Hinkie's lap on draft night.
Those were some of the hits. There was a movement and background chatter that mainly dealt with Hinkie excising mediocre players, adding no-chance players and low-level draft picks, all with an eye to remaining near the top of the lottery for a while.
But there have been mistakes.
The Sixers hoped to have Saric in Philadelphia by next season, but Saric would be crazy to leave Europe before 2017, when he can circumvent the rookie scale. That will delay Saric's NBA development for three years from his draft date.
Hinkie's trade of Carter-Williams last season made head coach Brett Brown balk and slowed The Plan by at least a season or two, even if Hinkie plans to sign a high-level veteran point guard at some point.
On Tuesday, Brown sent a clear message about his roster when he stressed how eagerly he anticipated the return of Kendall Marshall, "a legitimate point guard."
On that note, Hinkie seems to have a pathological disregard for hiring seasoned point guards to aid the development of Noel and Okafor. MCW was far from an ideal fit for Noel last season, but only after Hinkie traded MCW did Hinkie acquire a real point guard: Ish Smith. It was Smith who, according to Noel, pushed Noel into the Rookie of the Year race - a race that further validated Hinkie's bolder moves and Brown's deft touch.
As such, Noel's rapid development doesn't make the naysayers happy, either. He is the face of Hinkie's plan, so far.
But then, any anti-establishment initiative will, by definition, upset the establishment. The general managers and player agents who created the system certainly don't want to see it subverted or circumvented. The greater issue for the Hinkie Haters is an insistence that each of Hinkie's moves must show immediate dividends.
The greater issue with Hinkie's fervent acolytes is that no move can be questioned, lest their faith be questioned, too.
Hinkie hears it all, good and bad a-Twittered, and defaults to his core philosophy. Hinkie credits the quote about innovation to controversial Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, a self-made tycoon who, if nothing else, is innovative . . . to the tune of $50 billion.
Hinkie's Sixers: The Amazon of the NBA one day?
Maybe. That's what the Sons of Sam believe.
Right now, as any Hinkie Hater will tell you, they're Kmart.
On Twitter: @inkstainedretch