Sam Hinkie has been working with numbers for most of his adult life: since graduating from the University of Oklahoma, he has earned his M.B.A. from Stanford, advised N.F.L. teams on improving their draft strategy, consulted for Bain & Company, and, beginning in 2007, was the executive vice president of basketball operations for the Houston Rockets. He left that job a few weeks ago for a new one, taking over as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Real shifts in strategic philosophy have been rare in basketball—the metrics employed a half-century ago by John Wooden and Red Auerbach to evaluate talent remain prevalent today. But for nearly a decade now, many N.B.A. teams have taken clear steps to integrate advanced statistical analysis into their scouting processes, a cultural shift that happened in other sports, like baseball and football, years ago. Twenty-two of the thirty N.B.A. teams have some kind of analytics department in their front offices, and that number is trending significantly upward. Hinkie was an early evangelist for statistical analysis, and he joins a growing list of recent general-manager hires who share a similar passion, including Rob Hennigan, who was hired by the Orlando Magic last season, and Ryan McDonough, who just got the Phoenix Suns job, where he will make use of the team’s recently installed data-tracking cameras.

When it comes to discussing basketball, Hinkie has a way of isolating the perfect analogy, anecdote, or statistic for the argument at hand, and reaching into a seemingly bottomless pool of research to find it. I spoke with him about his approach back when he was still with the Rockets, where he worked closely with the general manager Daryl Morey, who is chair and founder of the M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a yearly staple for statisticians across each of the major sports leagues. Together, the two established a “numbers-friendly” culture in Houston, one that permeates the entire organization, from the front office, to head coach Kevin McHale, down to the players.

Understanding the core philosophy of advanced statistical analysis requires a familiarity with the economic theory of valuation. As Hinkie put it: “Any time you find some kinks or discover changes in the market, often it takes people a while to value them well. For instance, I think, in hindsight, that people undervalued young, foreign, dominant players, the cherry-picked example being Dirk Nowitzki. Same for high-school players, and later, international guards.” Each team has to choose what they value most in each potential player: size, speed, rebounding, shooting, athleticism, or some combination thereof. The Rockets’ front office has taken pride in being better evaluators of what matters most in each individual, and knowing when not to fixate on deficiencies in comparison with a player’s overall potential. Hinkie pointed to two of the team’s acquisitions: the guard Aaron Brooks and the forward Carl Landry, both of whom were initially considered undersized for their positions. The Rockets looked past that bit of conventional wisdom and drafted them much earlier than expected. Brooks went on to win the Most Improved Player award, and Landry ended up on the N.B.A. All-Rookie second team.

Hinkie is quick to point out that this approach isn’t as avant-garde as many make it out to be: all teams, he says, make decisions based on the information that they have. What Hinkie says sets him and his cohorts apart is that they are always looking to collect additional data and clean up misinformation. Analytic thinkers in basketball argue that the old “eye test” has its limitations and rely on statistics to fill that void. Most coaches can tell what kinds of plays allow their players to succeed: some thrive in the pick and roll, some while posting up, others in isolation, and on and on. But statistics measure exactly how much better these players do in those particular situations. It is why, for example, the “points-per-possession” statistic is so valuable for Hinkie, since it provides concrete data on what types of plays generate the most points, and helps coaches maximize a team’s offensive output by capitalizing on that information.

There are plenty of skeptics, however, including the former 76ers coach Larry Brown, who argues that statistics are always vulnerable to questionable interpretations. There are other teams in the league that seem to share Brown’s apprehension—teams like the Los Angeles Clippers and the Atlanta Hawks have yet to hire basketball statisticians in their front offices. These problems are compounded by the insularity of the field: individuals hired by teams as data evaluators generally work alone or in very small groups, with little opportunity to share and compare data with industry peers, leading to twenty-two individual efforts to improve advanced statistical analysis in basketball rather than a single comprehensive one. Another problem is that success in basketball also relies on hard-to-quantify measures like chemistry and how personalities blend with another. That is in contrast to baseball, where the analytics trend inspired executives league-wide to adopt advanced statistics into their decision-making. Bill James, known as the godfather of advanced baseball metrics, agrees that basketball poses unique challenges: “Chemistry is difficult to define, thus difficult to measure,” he said in an e-mail, but added that he nonetheless thinks that advanced analytics could be as successful in basketball as they have been baseball.

After four years under Morey, it was just a matter of time before Hinkie got a chance to run a team. The Sixers are in a pretty dark place. Their blockbuster trade for Andrew Bynum last year appears to be a bust, and with his free agency looming, the Sixers will be forced to rebuild on the fly, around all-star Jrue Holiday and young players like Thaddeus Young and Evan Turner. Hinkie says that he is ready for the challenge, writing in a text message that he is “invigorated to build something lasting.” It’s unlikely, though, that he’ll be able to engineer a sudden turnaround, considering the pace and intricacies of building teams in the league: Sam Presti, the general manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder and another analytics savant, had to wait for Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook to blossom into the championship-caliber duo they are today. And even then, luck plays a role, especially when it comes to injuries—the Thunder were set for a run in the playoffs this year, until Westbrook hurt his knee. Still, teams like the Thunder, the Memphis Grizzlies, and Morey’s emerging Rockets have provided a blueprint for success at using advanced statistical analysis. Fans in Philadelphia have reason to hope that the Sixers will be next.

Photograph by David Dow/NBAE/Getty.