Section 215
Fansided

Marcus Hayes Called the Sixers Plan “a Fraud” This Morning

By Tim Kelly

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A night after the Sixers took the Warriors down to the wire, on the same day that they are scheduled to release their new blue dog mascot Franklin, Marcus Hayes said this of Sam Hinkie’s plan to rebuild the Sixers.

"That makes The Plan a fraud."

Simply using that quote to define his article may be taking things out of context a bit, but to write that the day after the Sixers lost by five to the best team in the NBA is strange, to say the least. To say that when the Sixers are 4-6 in their last 10 games, their best stretch of the year, is nothing short of delusional.

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Putting things into context, the Daily News columnist said that because the Sixers didn’t land a veteran backup this past off-season to mentor Michael Carter-Williams and step in during games like last night when he was hurt, that the plan has a fatal flaw.

I would argue that signing someone like Jameer Nelson, who Hayes suggested, would take away from Carter-Williams’ touches and not necessarily help to improve his putrid shooting in the paint and from beyond the arc.

Also, the Sixers may have given Tony Wroten touches at the two-guard this year in an attempt to get him and Carter-Williams on the court at the same time, but he was the backup point-guard. He needs the ball in his hands to be most successful, and the Sixers entered the year with Wroten as the backup. They didn’t plan for him to suffer an ACL injury. Whether or not having a backup point-guard that was a veteran would have helped Carter-Williams to develop quicker is unknown, but Hayes wrote this article while trying to gloss over Wroten’s existence and act like Alexey Shved, Larry Drew II and Tim Fraizer were the actual backup point-guards. Make no mistake, if Wroten was healthy with Carter-Williams injured, like he was early in the season, he would be starting at point.

Hayes went on.

"But employing Frazier does not enhance The Plan."

Well yeah, it kind of does. If the Sixers play the way that they did last night to the point where they are competing with the NBA’s best team, and still lose, they really win. Despite Jerami Grant, Nerlens Noel and K.J. McDaniels giving Sixers’ fans hope for the future, this still isn’t a team built to win now. Rather than taking shortcuts by signing expensive free-agents that don’t fit with the team, the team gets to let young players develop in games like this, while still collecting another top five pick.

Playing on a bad team the first few years of Allen Iverson’s career didn’t hurt his long-term viability. I am by no means trying to compare Carter-Williams or Iverson–Carter-Williams still may not even be part of the team long-term–but if the Sixers had been worse for a few more years in the late 90’s, Iverson’s career may have lasted longer. If the Sixers had employed Tim Fraizer behind Iverson, Iverson still could have grown through experience, and the team could have maybe ended up with another top five pick in the 1998 draft, rather than the 10th pick. Imagine ending up with Vince Carter instead of Larry Hughes. The Sixers may not have won the 2001 title, the Lakers were still loaded, but their long-term viability would have been much better.

To put things simply, just because the Sixers are growing doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s time to stop having some tanking pieces on the team. It doesn’t mean that while you still aren’t a good team, it isn’t worth giving different players looks. Having a Jameer Nelson type on the Sixers probably would do nothing more than help the Sixers move down a few spots in the draft, while taking away from the amount of touches that potential long-term pieces like Carter-Williams and Wroten would have gotten. I’m not sure that lends it self to the idea of “development”.

Perhaps the most puzzling part of Hayes’ article, was the fact that he continued to paint Sam Hinkie in a negative light.

"The Plan, in essence, is the blueprint concocted by young analytics whiz Sam Hinkie, the Sixers’ second-year general manager who has staffed his front office with numbers men of his ilk. He figured to stockpile draft picks; acquire cheap, young talent with specific characteristics; and let the team develop organically."

It’s funny, if you read that paragraph, you would think the Sixers plan wasn’t working. You would think they weren’t trying to lose games this year. You would think that none of the second-round picks that that the team had stockpiled were paying off on the court. Or that the sports science and culture tactics that that “numbers guys” were key in implementing weren’t working. But you know, they are. The Sixers development is undeniable to people who are actually watching every minute of every game. It’s just that the sports radio hosts and “preeminent” sports writers in this town don’t seem to be capable of doing that.

No, the Sixers aren’t doing this with Larry Brown as the head-coach and Tony DiLeo heading the front-office. They are building a team in perhaps the most unpopular fashion in the history of the league, but it appears to be working. If Chip Kelly did something like this, we would rave about he was “ahead of the curve”. But so many old-head members of the local media were so quick to write off the Hinkie’s original plan, that now that it appears to have some serious traction, they have to grasp at things like this to keep from admitting that they just weren’t right.