NBA: The Religion and Science Of Success In The Association

The NBA religion of patience and supposed analytics created by 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie has come to be known as “The Process.” Is it worth it?

When thinking about a team as successful as the San Antonio Spurs versus the annual circus of scrubs that has been the Philadelphia 76er’s, it is mind boggling that the two teams want the same thing, a successful and winning basketball team.

This religion of patience and supposed analytics created by 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie has come to be known as “The Process.”

The 76ers represent one side of the aspire to success spectrum. For the past few years, Hinkie, the Sixers general manager, has been preaching patience, that a championship contender will form atop the shoulders of high draft picks and rookie contracts.

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Philadelphia has won exactly one game in the last nine months. Who do they have to show for it? A rookie in Jahlil Okafor with an insatiable desire for punching NBA fans, a second-year player in Joel Embiid who cares more about partying than he does his continually fractured skeleton, and a promising Nerlens Noel who has shown that he does not fit alongside Okafor.

Many NBA writers, analysts and general managers have begun to see the league as numbers on a page, discounting the very raw and real emotions that a human basketball player will feel after continually losing. A player’s ceiling depends upon their habitat and team culture, the NBA is not a NBA2K video game.

Gregg Poppovich, R.C. Buford, and the rest of the Spurs staff have meanwhile chosen to rely upon the science of their proven system to churn 50-plus win season after 50-plus win season.

While they lucked into drafting Tim Duncan in 1997, they had an established and proven system that they incorporated the greatest power forward of all-time into. While one could argue that Tim Duncan made them great, the Spurs were very good before the era of Duncan, and they look to be very good in his twilight.

The 76ers’ faith-based model wants to be the Thunder model, but it simply cannot be. It cannot be because Kevin Durant is a walking miracle of a basketball player, and the chances of pairing him with players similar to tenacious future hall of famer Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Serge Ibaka is impossible. It’s not going to happen because that level of sustained luck is found in screenplay scripts, and not in real life.

Beyond that, Thunder GM Sam Presti did not always draft for the biggest perceived talent available, he took flyers on under the radar guys that developed into the studs they are today. When the Thunder were rebuilding, they kept a strong veteran presence to guide the youngsters and maintain a culture of professionalism.

One look at the 76ers roster shows a constantly changing player personnel, many players that have no business being in the greatest league on Earth, and a roster devoid of steady hand veterans.

The gaming of the NBA draft system that has been performed by Sam Hinkie took only into account the chance for a Durantesque miracle, but never understood the near certain negative effects that losing has on a person’s morale and mindset. Most people are not so good at processing failure, it is foolish to think that impressionable and talented rookies will bloom in such depressing conditions.

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The 76ers need to abandon their lose-now approach. The basketball gods are not pleased with air-balled sacrifices and have returned in kind with busts and busted knees.

Spending year after year toiling to toil is an approach best left for those who enjoy suffering, not for an NBA team hungry for success. The recipe for success is evident, just ask the San Antonio Spurs.

A system and human based approach beats the luck of the draft nearly every time. If your religion is predicated on pain and failure with little promise of return, it’s a bad religion.