Brooky: Colangelo finds right words; Hinkie could not

It was, by far, the most interesting point of the 36 minutes Josh Harris and Bryan Colangelo spent together in front of the media Sunday afternoon inside the Hall of Fame Club at the Wells Fargo Center.

Harris, the 76ers' majority owner, was asked if he considered the nearly three years with Sam Hinkie as the team's general manager a success. Colangelo, the man introduced as Hinkie's replacement, intervened.

"I do think it has been a success, because we're at a jumping-off point now," Colangelo said a few hours before the Sixers played their final home game against the Milwaukee Bucks. "The organization is poised to take a major leap forward because of what has transpired over these last few years of what I'm going to call a measured rebuilding process."

In just a few words, Colangelo offered a better defense of "The Process" than Hinkie could in 7,000 words and 13 pages. Therein lies the main reason the future of the 76ers is in better hands today than it was a week ago when Hinkie was still the organizational front man.

Congratulations are in order if you actually made it all the way through Hinkie's 13-page resignation letter that will stand with Allen Iverson's practice rant among the organization's most infamous off-the-court moments. If you did make it through, you know that Hinkie's most rational points came in the latter pages when he outlined the state of the franchise beyond this season.

I think Hinkie overestimates the ability of Jerami Grant, Richaun Holmes, T.J. McConnell, and Robert Covington. He was correct, however, when he said that the 76ers have building blocks with their three big men - Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor - even if one or more of them is used to acquire other talent in a trade.

Nobody knows yet what this year's draft will bring, but a lot of rebuilding teams would love to have three first-round picks and the arrival of Embiid and Croatia's Dario Saric as part of their plan.

Hinkie makes all these points near the end of his letter and he also describes what a great position the Sixers are in regarding the salary cap. A good editor would have told him to make those points in the first two pages and leave out all the rest, but Hinkie had an obsession with high finance and Warren Buffett in the early pages. In fact, he mentions Buffett's name on pages 1, 2 and 4. He obviously idolizes the man, but he apparently forgot the most important lesson of Buffett's own life.

The billionaire investor has said many times that the thing that changed his life the most was learning how to speak publicly through a course taught by Dale Carnegie.

"My mom says when he was in his 20s, he was reasonably socially inept," said Buffet's son, Robert. "In large crowds, he'd rather not be there. He'd rather be reading and working on his stuff."

That sounds like a perfect description of Hinkie, and his lack of communication skills extended beyond that to his dealings with NBA agents and opposing general managers. He even had problems communicating with Jerry Colangelo after Colangelo was placed in the role of team chairman earlier this season. It does not matter how smart you are if you are unable to coherently express your wisdom, and Hinkie's 13-page resignation letter confirmed that it was an issue for him.

If he is really smart - and he is - Hinkie will take that Dale Carnegie course Buffett always raves about before he takes another NBA job.

In the meantime, the 76ers have moved on, replacing Hinkie with Colangelo in a move that reeks of nepotism but does not lack for wisdom.

Like his father, Bryan Colangelo is a terrific communicator. He handled his first news conference as the 76ers president of basketball operations with remarkable aplomb and was smart enough to know that what just fell into his lap was a terrific opportunity.

"This is one of the most exciting jobs that is out there in this league right now," said Colangelo, who has previously worked as a GM in Phoenix and Toronto. "It's a situation where my predecessor, Sam Hinkie, has done a nice job of establishing the assets and resources to move forward in a positive way. I'm sorry that Sam will not be a part of that. It was intended all along that he would, but the fact that we're moving forward onward and upward, we're all excited about this transition that is happening now."

As well as the 76ers are positioned after all this losing, there is a lot of work to be done, and, given what the fans have endured over the last three years, less patience than ever to do it. Instead of getting better on the court in each of Hinkie's three seasons as general manager, the 76ers got worse. In the case of this season, much worse.

Now, the team's new president of basketball operations claims they are about to get better, which, if nothing else, sounds good.

"There is definitely a timeline in place," Colangelo said. "Without being specific, I've outlined for our ownership what I think is realistic. We will not abandon what is in place in terms of strategy. We won't rush into anything. We're going to be very measured in the next wave of additions."

But winning apparently is going to matter starting next season and the actual pursuit of free agents appears to be on the immediate horizon, too.

"I really want to make sure that everyone understands this is a transition from this measured rebuilding process to sustainable winning," Colangelo said.

Sustainable winning after so much losing. Now we begin to find out if Colangelo can back up the right words by making the right moves.

bbrookover@phillynews.com

@brookob