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Sam Hinkie, clearly, wasn't a fan of self-preservation in Philly

Sam Hinkie's on his second cup. (Getty Images)
Sam Hinkie’s on his second cup. (Getty Images)

Former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie is either about to turn into a world class NBA martyr, or his role in creating what could be the league’s next great team might be lost to history even in this hyper-aware age of reporting.

We probably should be years away from putting pen to paper on the definitive tome regarding his legacy in Philly, and the truth should probably lie somewhere in the middle between those annoying “Hinkie Died For Your Sins” signs and the bash-fests; but, per usual, with the way things are heading we’re probably going to have to scratch our way into the gray areas.

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Hinkie walked away from the 76ers earlier this season after the team basically made life untenable for him by hiring basketball lifer Jerry Colangelo to look over his shoulder. The looming, unofficial presence of Colangelo’s son Bryan (a former top personnel executive in Phoenix and Toronto) was understandably too much for Hinkie, who was about to finish up the third year of the longest tanking process in league history.

Teams have taken a year to lose before, and potentially two-to-10 inadvertently losing seasons following that, but never has a GM been afforded the luxury of three purposeful years in the cellar. Life with Hinkie – not just the losing but his dodgy relationship with players, agents and fellow GMs – had become similarly untenable.

Bryan Colangelo, shockingly, was eventually hired to run the club after what we’re sure was an exhaustive vetting process. Outside of a leaked and rather polarizing letter to his former bosses, Hinkie has remained silent about the divorce in the months since – following three years of mostly ignoring the media. ESPN the Magazine, however, recently released a few choice quips from the former Sixers boss that were given prior to his parting.

From March, in regards to the self-preservation that tends to be pervasive amongst those crazy people who like to stay employed:

“ … because fear has been the motivating factor for way too many people for way too long. There’s a huge agency problem in the whole business, particularly in my role: Keep the job.”

It’s a good job to have, running an NBA team. You get paid well to do something thousands would happily do for free, and you can count yourself as just one of 30 trusted with your own particular process. And it’s important to remind that Sam Hinkie walked away from this job, rather than submit to a working relationship with someone that he probably saw as a milquetoast minder.

Bryan Colangelo has done this before, and at times well. He’ll forever have the cloud of Hinkie’s core of assets being handed to him on the platter, but Colangelo also had to watch as his leftover core of Toronto Raptor acquisitions won three straight Atlantic Division titles before making it to the Eastern Conference finals, all while the since-removed Colangelo sat on the sideline.

That’s how these things sometimes work. Championship Cleveland GM David Griffin is a great basketball mind who is a massive improvement on his predecessor, but he didn’t draft Kyrie Irving. Warriors GM Bob Myers is similarly fantastic, but he didn’t draft Stephen Curry. Most GMs – outside of perhaps former Bulls executive Jerry Krause, who chafed every time he was reminded that Michael Jordan was on board before his hiring – will happily win, without reflex, with players another guy drafted.

The core of assets Hinkie left Colangelo with is significant, if incomplete and potentially superfluous.

Philly will enter this offseason with more salary cap space than any other team save for the Los Angeles Lakers (and just barely). It counts Nerlens Noel, a returning Joel Embiid (who will play in the Summer League), Jahlil Okafor and Robert Covington on its roster. It will likely take in coveted swingman Dario Saric (who has been developing on his Turkish team’s dime) this fall.

It will have its own first-round pick next year, and it has the right to grab the Lakers’ (who just drafted a 19-year-old and don’t figure to be a free agency destination yet) pick should it fall out of the top three. If Sacramento takes in some bad lottery luck prior to the loaded 2017 draft, Philly has the right to swap picking positions with them. If Los Angeles keeps its pick in 2017, it becomes unprotected in 2018 prior to being sent to Philadelphia. The 76ers own Sacramento’s 2019 first-round pick, unprotected, and seven other incoming second-round picks from various teams.

The stash is still loaded, for the right GM. We’re still not sure if Philadelphia’s former GM was the right GM, or if its current GM is the right GM. That’s how this league works.

In his first big move, Colangelo did what 29 other GMs (30, if you count Hinkie) would have done in drafting Ben Simmons with the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. From there, though, things are getting a little worrisome – to the point where you almost have to wonder if you’re being put on, because these names are straight out of central casting:

It’s been rumored that Colangelo is considering a max deal for Golden State’s restricted free agent Harrison Barnes, less of a “let’s get the near-champs to send their payroll into the stratosphere”-ploy and more of a “Harrison Barnes rules!”-sort of move. Dion Waiters is also reportedly in the mix.

Admittedly this is a slim free-agent class, and Hinkie would likely have been pressed into free-agent bargaining this summer anyway, but … great. Why not bring Evan Turner in for a look? Give Jeff Green’s representatives a call. Maybe swing a few of those upcoming draft picks out to Sacramento for Rudy Gay. See if Hedo Turkoglu has anything left in those legs. Get the whole band back together.

“Keep the job.”

That’s the thing. One could argue that Hinkie was working along those lines in dangling the carrot of Noel and Embiid’s extended rehabilitations, the future draft picks or the eventual arrival of Saric. His excuse is that he was shooting for the moon, while an overwhelming number of GMs, for years, dangle the carrot in ways that aren’t always conducive to winning a championship. More expensive ways, even, that ownership signs on for.

Signing middling veterans to overpriced deals. Trading away future picks (that the next GM will no doubt miss) for win-now “help.” Shooting for 45 wins after a 35-win season, or 50 wins after a 45-win year, with no real plan about how to hit 60 and roll the corner and into the realm of championship contention. The trip to 60 wins doesn’t always have start out at 16 wins – for every former bottom-feeding, rebuilding project in Seattle/Oklahoma City there are always winners that made their hay in the mid-lottery, like Golden State – but sometimes it helps to not be comfortable in the middle.

Look at the league’s list of teams for proof. You can respect the work and knowledge base of just about every NBA front office working today, but the overwhelming majority of NBA teams (including some that approached or even topped 50 wins last year) are out of the championship picture unless they receive a significant break. Not just 2016-17’s picture, either, but long term.

That core ain’t doing it for probably 25 teams. This is a league where you would consider a 29-win Minnesota team to have a greater eventual championship chance than a Toronto Raptors team that was two wins away from the Finals this year.

We don’t know if Philly’s core will ever get there, either. As mentioned previously, Hinkie may have had the right idea, but the wrong sense of scouting to pull this off.

Whether or not the Sixers turn into winners – extreme winners, as was the point – with Hinkie’s core likely won’t change the perception much. What is certain is that eventually a team owner will hire a GM with the temerity to trust a rebuilding process as long as Hinkie’s, while also offering up the scouting and communications acumen to match.

Whether or not that leads to anything title-worthy is up to all the usual elements.

Pinning a team’s hopes on one-in-four lottery odds. A guy’s torn ACL. Troubles at home. A can’t miss assistant-to-head coach hire that unexpectedly fell flat on its face (we’re not referring to Sixers coach Brett Brown, a damn good coach, here). A relationship between a pair of teammates changing forever because one sincere text scanned as a little too sarcastic. The iffy No. 7 pick turning into a two-time MVP, while the impressive No. 2 pick is out of the NBA after 224 games.

Even in an ever-evolving league, all the vicissitudes are still there. All the road blocks that don’t show up on the GPS, all the championship accelerators that nobody could have foreseen. No plan, no matter how bold or lethargic or middling, self-sustaining and trite, changes any of these things.

The answer is always going to be in the middle somewhere. And if you do ever find it, you should be reminded yet again that there was never any answer to begin with. Even in Philadelphia.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!