Why "The Process" FAILED Miserably

some NBA teams became so special that they defined an entire era earning a unique nickname that described their playing style the written grind Grizzlies Showtime Lakers Bad Boy Detroit Pistons the Philadelphia 76ers also have a nickname that defines an era but they didn't get it because of any particular style of play the Sixers became famous for the phrase trust the process which has become synonymous with deliberate tanking to acquire All-Star players however it's been 10 years since the process start and Philly did get their All-Stars but they never got close to winning a championship so was the process of failure we'll discuss all the key decisions the Sixers made during the process all of their terrible draft mistakes and the players they could have picked instead in 2012 the Sixers had a team with multiple talented players including Andre Iguodala Drew holiday Lou Williams and Nicola vuchevich but after they got knocked out in the second round of the playoffs they decided to make major changes in the largest trade in NBA history that saw 14 players change teams the Sixers traded Iguodala and vuchevich in exchange for Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson Bynum was the second best center in the NBA at the time and the Sixers management believed he was going to be the Superstar they craved for years unfortunately for them Philly received the shortest end of the stick because of multiple knee injuries Bynum didn't play a single game for the Sixers and his time in Philadelphia will only be remembered by those horrible haircuts without buying them the Sixers finished the 2013 season in ninth place four wins away from the final playoff spot and for an NBA team being mediocre is the worst possible outcome because you're not good enough to contend for the playoffs and not bad enough to get top picks in the draft in the 2013 season the Sixers promoted Sam hinke to be their general manager and Sam wasn't going to be mediocre pinky wanted a major rebuild with the plan of being horrible for a few years in order to get top draft picks and improve in the long run rebuilding was nothing revolutionary in American sports leagues driven by the salary cap but what was both genius and hideous about hinky's plan was the time that he was willing to suck and how long he intended for the Sixers to deliberately lose gains hinky's Mantra trust the process soon became synonymous with the 76ers and their tanking strategy as their GM was trading away all the remaining players who could deter the Sixers from their losing course I hope that everybody understands the level of patience that we're all going to have pinky first traded Drew holiday for the rights to the sixth pick in the 2013 draft which he used to select a talented defensive big man nerlin's Noel the move was seen as a big surprise because holiday was the Sixers best young player who had just made the All-Star team and Noel was recovering from an ACL injury with a 13th overall pick hinky also selected Michael Carter Williams in front of Yana centenocompo and Rudy gobert hinky wasn't done dealing and out of 15 players who were on the roster in 2013 only six remained with the team by the start of the new season still there was Hope on the horizon for the new look Sixers as Michael Carter Williams had a great rookie season MCW finished the 2013-14 season averaging 16 points six rebounds and six assists winning the Rookie of the Year award but more importantly the Sixers had the second worst record in the NBA which secured them the third overall pick in the draft they used the pick to select Joel embiid and with the 12th pick they drafted a Croatian power forward Dario sharich however neither of them were expected to make an immediate impact for the Sixers as embiid was recovering from a stress fracture in his foot and shards would spend two years playing in Turkey while those absences would deter most franchises from Drafting and beat in charge the Sixers welcomed this scenario as they went according to their tanking plans but there is tanking and then there's what the Sixers did with the process Philly started the 2014-15 season with 17 straight losses one shy of an NBA record and while the Sixers were losing hinky had his hands full he again surprised Everyone by trading Michael Carter Williams for some more draft picks trading the reigning rookie of the year was unprecedented and the Sixers fans were getting desperate but hinky pleaded for everyone to trust the process after finishing the CIA season with 18 wins and the third worst record in the NBA Philly again struck out in the lottery and failed to win the first overall pick still they had their third selection which they used on Jalil Okafor a dominant low post Center out of duke it was unclear why hinky decided to draft a center for the third consecutive year especially because there were some far better options in the draft namely Chris Taps porzingis and Devin Booker but it wasn't all naked and hinky did make some good decisions finding Jeremy Grant and Rashawn Holmes in the second round and signing Robert Covington from the Gili however as the most prized pick Joel embiid suffered another setback he was ruled out of a second consecutive season which meant another year of tanking and this time the Sixers were worse than ever breaking the NBA record for consecutive losses with 28 straight L's after they finished the 2015-2016 season with just 10 wins disgruntled fans couldn't take it anymore the typical Philly fashion you know we get so close and then we lose as hinky had turned their beloved franchise into an NBA laughing stock finally after three years of the worst tanking in NBA history the Sixers decided to part ways with Inky who left via a 7 000 word resignation he stepped down hastily um he should have been fired Brian Colangelo was named as the new head of basketball operations and thanks to hinky's losing Legacy he received the perfect present he's so much desired first overall pick Colangelo used it on Ben Simmons in front of guys like Brandon Ingram Jalen Brown Jamal Murray and damonta sabonis the Sixers also drafted Timothy lewallow and for Khan corkmaz instead of pascalciakum De Chante Murray and Malcolm Brogden but at first glance Simmons seemed like The Logical choice and was widely regarded as the top prospect in the draft an Uber talented six foot ten point guard who could do anything on the court except shooting but the Sixers believed that he'd learned to shoot as his career progressed however on the last day of training camp Simmons fractured a bone in his foot and just like his new teammate Joel embiid rookie Ben Simmons has been ruled out for the the rest of the season it wasn't all that bad because embiid finally recovered after two missed seasons and showed that he was well worth the wait and bead averaged 20 points eight rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game displaying all-around Talent that's rarely seen But after just 31 games Joelle got injured again and would not play for the rest of the year Philly won 28 games which was still the fourth worst in the NBA but at least they finally started to improve they also got the third pick in the draft and while most franchises would be happy with the third pick the Sixers traded their pick and another future lottery pick for the rights to the first overall pick which was owned by the Celtics with this first pick in the 2017 draft the Sixers selected Markel fultz a super talented combo guard who was supposed to perfectly compliment embiid and Simmons the Celtics selected Jason Tatum with a third pick a guy they probably wanted all along but now they had him and the extra pick along with Tatum other notable names in the draft included future All-Stars de'aaron Fox Laurie markkanen Donovan Mitchell and Bam adebayo among several other quality players and as per Sixers tradition the new season hadn't even started yet and their lottery pick had already started to show signs of trouble during training camp fultz started tweaking his shot and when his season started his otherwise smooth stroke started to look extremely crooked fultz was selected first overall because he was an unbelievable shooter and a great athlete but when the season started his jump shot disappeared like a fart in the Wind and The Saga around his shot perplexed the Sixers and the entire NBA modify your shot at all oh I mean I did a whole bunch of things that you know that I'm not gonna talk about it wasn't until the end of his rookie year that the doctors discovered that Markell had a rare thoracic outlet syndrome which disabled faults from properly extending his arm but on the flip side their other lottery picks were finally healthy and they played well Simmons averaged 16 8 and 8 and won Rookie of the Year while embiid averaged 23 11-3 and made the All-Star team the Sixers fans were finally out of their misery as Philly won 52 games they convincingly won the first round series against the Heat and then just as convincingly lost in the second round to the Celtics who painfully exposed Simmons lack of shooting despite a winning season Philly again had a lottery pick in 2018 thanks to hinky's inheritance of draft picks and pick number 10 will be made by the Philadelphia 76ers however it wouldn't be Brian Colangelo who would make the draft decisions due to a scandal where the Sixers GM used burner Twitter accounts to talk badly about the franchise Sam Henke Joel embiid and Julia Okafor galangelo was fired Elton brand was hired as the new GM and his first decision was selecting Mikhail Bridges 10th overall but then he immediately traded Bridges away to Phoenix for Zaire Smith who was the 16th overall bit out of all the mistakes they made this one was one of the worst as Bridges blossomed into one of the best players in the draft while Smith played only 13 NBA games and is currently not even on a g-league roster other notable players who the Sixers could have selected include Michael Porter Jr Jalen Brunson and Robert Williams the Sixers also sent their backup center Rashaan Holmes to the sons for cash compensation which was another bad decision since they had no one to back up and beat but with embiid and Simmons Italy finally had the building blocks for the championship hunt they both made the 2019 All-Star team and Elton brand didn't want to be patient and develop the team organically he decided to go all in trading Robert Covington and Dario sarich for Jimmy Butler and then also acquiring Tobias Harris for two first round and two second round picks with those two trades Billy was relieved of all the picks and depth they had from hinky's losing years but now they were a true Contender and the process was finally over in the 2019 playoffs the Sixers beat the Nets in five games and faced the Toronto Raptors in the second round the series went to seven games which was decided by Kawhi Leonard's or bounce buzzer beat Rashawn Holmes trade looked even worse then as Philly got outscored by 109 points in the series over the 99 minutes that embiid was on the bench but the Sixers troubles were still just beginning that offseason the 76ers chose not to retain bomb trading him to the heat for the much cheaper Josh Richardson and cap space Butler never believed in the Sixers project long term questioning the winning mentality of their players namely Ben Simmons the Sixers didn't want both of their mid-season Acquisitions to walk away so their hand was forced to give Tobias a Max contract worth 180 million dollars over five years Tobias Harris he is signing for 180 million dollars over five years it was a massive overpay for a guy that was the fourth option on the team and it's still unclear whether Harris's contract had anything to do with Butler walking away another big move Elton brand made in the off season was signing Al Horford with the cap space from the butler tree Orford signed for four years and 109 million dollars which was another crazy decision considering that he was essentially a backup center for MB something they could have had in Rashawn Holmes for five times less with a retooled roster the Sixers had an up and down 2019-20 season finishing as the sixth seed which set them up to play the Celtics in the first round without the injured Ben Simmons the Sixers had no answers for the Celtics who swept them to add insult to injury Tobias Harris and Horford had an extremely poor series proving Bran's off-season decisions to be terrible following the embarrassing loss both coach Brett Brown and brand got fired and the Sixers appointed Doc Rivers as the new head coach and Daryl Mori as the president of basketball operations the river's Mori era started well drafting Tyrese Maxi with the 21st pick which was an undeniable home run Mori also signed Seth Curry to add much needed shooting and chose to trade Al Horford for Danny Greene and Terrace Ferguson for the same reasons in the 2020-2021 season the Sixers finished first in the East and it finally seemed like the trio of Simmons and bead and Harris had found the right chemistry but their Championship aspirations would crash in the second round once again against the Hawks it was painfully obvious that Simmons not only didn't improve but he actually regressed Ben disappeared in the fourth quarter of each game fearing to take a shot highlighted by passing up an open dunk because he was afraid to get fouled and shoot free throws Simmons shot in abysmal 33 from the line and after the Sixers Lost the series both embiid and Coach Rivers threw him under the bus in their post-game press conferences Ben took this personally and understandably so but unlike most players who would use this as motivation to get better Simmons decided to hold out and not play for the Sixers ever again the Simmons Saga lasted for months it included 20 million dollars in fines and all kinds of made-up Shenanigans by Simmons to avoid suiting up eventually Mori was able to trade him and Seth Curry for James Harden with Simmons gone and the beard on board Billy hoped they would finally get over the hump they again made the second round of the 2022 playoffs this time against Jimmy Butler and his Miami Heat but once again their All-Stars failed to deliver with Hardin clearly hobbled from a hamstring injury and indeed having another poor shooting Series in the clutch the heat kicked the Sixers out of the playoffs when he was leaving the arena following the series win Jimmy shouted painfully reminding the Sixers that they bet on the wrong player in the off season Mori pulled off a series of logical moves to bolster the line on-depth additions like T Anthony Melton P.J Tucker and George nyang have mainly been successful with a healthy Hardin Maxie Harris and MVP Joel embiid the Sixers looked ready to break the curse and escape the second round it looked like it would finally happen after they took a 3-2 series lead against Boston with game six scheduled in Philadelphia once again their Superstars dropped the ball and beaten Hardin played poorly in game six and then also in game seven both disappearing when it mattered the most Hardin scored zero points in the fourth quarter of the final three games I have never seen him nor any Star that bad in a game set and embiid was equally bad not being aggressive and playing bad defense Al Horford who they traded away was one of the main catalysts for Boston's defense on MB and once more it was their former player who put the nail in the Sixers coffin it's been 11 years since their 2012 loss in the second round and Philly's decision to tank 11 seasons and several All-Stars later they still haven't Advanced past the second round so was the process a failure let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below

Channel: Nonstop

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Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023