Basketball had never seen an attempt to build a franchise the way Sam Hinkie wanted to. And with Colangelo and D’Antoni now on board, we’re unlikely to see it again

The 76ers' mad analytics experiment was doomed to fail – but at least it was memorable

The Sixers have made losers out of all of us.

The 1-29 experiment in tanking analytics is being tainted by the introduction of “basketball people” in Jerry Colangelo and Mike D’Antoni. After more than two and a half years of of Sam Hinkie being able to do whatever he wants, dump any asset and draft every damaged 7ft guy the world over, those above Hinkie are now forcing him to be influenced by two guys whose knowledge of statistical analysis probably ends with understanding that a three-pointer is worth more than a two-pointer.

In Colangelo and D’Antoni, chairman of basketball operations and associate head coach respectively, the Sixers are wrecking what mad statistician/GM Hinkie was building before we all got to see the final Frankenstatistic product. The Sixers are like a bold avant garde film that had the studio drop Keanu Reeves and Reese Witherspoon into it halfway through filming. Pulling Hinkie’s computer plug now is like refusing to allow infinite monkeys to finish writing on their typewriters.

It’s dropping the funding on the development of an alternative energy car that was to be fueled entirely on weed smoke.

If those analogies are bad or confusing or tortured, they’re even more fitting for whatever it is that Hinkie was attempting to do with his bad and confusing and tortured Sixers. Unfortunately, now we’ll never know. Because now the Sixers have basketball “people” with basketball “knowledge.”

Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) #Sixers chairman Jerry Colangelo tells #ESPN the #Sixers are lacking basketball people & knowledge - that's why they hired Mike D'Antoni

Yuck. With the input of Colangelo and D’Antoni, the Sixers will no doubt become like any other team, scratching and clawing for semi-relevance and a low playoff seed barring a generational star falling into their laps.

Hinkie promised something different. No team had ever tanked like Hinkie’s Sixers. Previous sports tankings were designed to land one special player and then instantly get to work on contending. Hinkie’s tanking was indefinite, geared to draft no one in particular – other than maybe finding the NBA’s first eight-footer – and didn’t promise contention any time soon. This is a team that has won one of its last 40 games over two seasons and shows zero signs of coming improvement.

Basketball had never seen an attempt to build a franchise this way. And with the Sixers giving up, we’re unlikely to ever see it again.

Maybe Colangelo, Hinkie, D’Antoni and Brett Brown will mesh perfectly and build a balanced team in Philadelphia that will contend for championships in the near future. But even if that happens, we’ll still be left with the nagging question of what might have been. Awesome or terrible – and it was looking more and more like terrible – Hinkie’s ultimate “The Process” Sixers were going to be memorable.

We’ve lost them forever. We are losers. We are all just Sixers now.

Vine of the week

Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) Kevin Durant x Dr J - Under The Basket Reverse Layup (Vine by @TheCauldron) https://t.co/BnTBDgJQy5

In last week’s tight four-point loss at Cleveland, Durant pulled off a pretty spot-on Dr J impression in the first quarter. But it’s not even Durant’s best Julius Erving-style reverse layup in his career. Check out this ridiculousness from three seasons ago against the Nuggets:

When your wingspan is that of an adult condor, the normal bounds of sidelines and backboards simply don’t apply.

How did LeBron carry the Cavaliers this week?

After LeBron sat out back on December 5 in Cleveland’s loss to the Heat, he has returned to average 27, six and five as Cleveland has won five in a row. Kyrie Irving even owes his first points of the season to LeBron thanks to James passing up a dunk on Sunday to give Irving an easy bucket.

Somewhere someone awful ripped James for over-passing on this play.

Quote of the week

I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game. I think we get a little carried away with ourselves in sports thinking we’re more important than everything else. – Stan Van Gundy

Full disclosure: that hilarious quote is not from this week. It’s not even from this year. Van Gundy said it back in 2009 when he was head coach of the Orlando Magic. (Fun fact: the Magic were then fined by Scrooge Stern over Van Gundy’s public objection to working on Christmas. Really.) Van Gundy’s Pistons aren’t scheduled to play on Christmas this year, so he can spend the holiday doing whatever it is that people with rich, full lives do instead of watching basketball. Watching A Christmas Story over and over maybe?

Power Rankings

1. Golden State Warriors (Last week: 1)

After their slip-up against the Bucks, the Warriors seem to be rolling on towards the 1996 Bulls’ wins record with back-to-back victories by an average margin of 17 points. But maybe not everything is perfect. Consider that Steph Curry is shooting just 47% from the floor in his last four games while NBA laughing stock Kobe Bryant is shooting 51% in his last four. Can the Warriors really expect to win a title in 2015 with a shooting guard who is worse than Kobe? Hashtag: FunWithStats.

2. San Antonio Spurs (2)

Gregg Popovich is on-record as hating the three-point shot, but Kawhi Leonard is on pace for a career-high in three-pointers made and his 47.2 three-point percentage is even better than Curry’s. Leonard better knock it off or he could get benched.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers (4)

Kyrie Irving played his first game of the season on Sunday against the Sixers. Bullying is wrong and the Cavaliers should apologize.

4. Oklahoma City Thunder (3)

Kevin Durant hit a go-ahead jumper with 5.8 seconds left on Monday night and then blocked Chris Paul as time expired to give the Thunder a 100-99 win in Los Angeles against the Clippers. It’s probably more productive if we all stop debating if Durant or Russell Westbrook is the best player on the Thunder and instead talk about how fun it is to watch a team play that has both of them healthy and in their primes.

5. Miami Heat (8)

The Heat are said to be a possible landing spot for Dwight Howard in a potential trade, which would really be a good deal for Miami if they’re looking to get a 30 year-old player in rapid decline who is owed $23 million next year.

6. Atlanta Hawks (16)

Dennis Schroder had a tooth knocked out against Portland on Monday night and reacted by calmly placing it in his sock.

Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) Dennis Schroder lost a tooth last night and decided to put it in his sock. https://t.co/QWPc7MaPw5

If Schroder puts things like teeth in his socks, the lint tray in his washing machine must be quite a sight.

7. Indiana Pacers (9)

George Hill is the next Jason Kidd. Not because he’s a future Hall of Famer. He’s not. He’s just a point guard who, like Kidd, will forever have regrettable photos of himself online with a blonde dye job.

8. Toronto Raptors (5)

The Raptors have lost three of four, including a 10-point home loss to the lowly Kings on Monday. Maybe the unusually warm winter weather has tricked them into playing like they do in April.

9. Dallas Mavericks (11)

Head coach Rick Carlisle says Chandler Parson has done a lot of hard work to recover from hybrid microfracture surgery on his right knee: “Everybody wants a nice cooked steak, but nobody wants to see you chopping up the cows in the back. The last five or six months, Parson has been in the back butchering clows – that’s the kind of work he’s had to do.” Rick, you play in Texas. Everyone is absolutely fine with chopping up cows.

10. Chicago Bulls (6)

The Bulls have lost three in a row and Jimmy Butler says new head coach Fred Hoiberg needs to coach the team “a lot harder.” Before this year, the Bulls were coached by the ball of stress and rage that is Tom Thibodeau, so Butler’s idea of what constitutes intense coaching may be a little bit skewed.

11. Detroit Pistons (15)

The Pistons released Josh Smith a year ago today. Detroit was 5-23 at the time and has gone 43-39 since. Maybe the Clippers, Smith’s current employer, should try to turn their fortunes around by releasing him this year.

12. Orlando Magic (14)

As 24 year-old Magic center Nikola Vucevic continues to take steps to toward becoming a star, it’s fun to think back to 2012 when he was a throw-in with Andre Iguodala in the trade that netted the Sixers Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson. What if the Sixers had kept Vucevic? Sam Hinkie would have yet another talented seven-footer on his roster. On the downside, Vucevic would be helping Hinkie’s team win games.

13. Boston Celtics (10)

Celtics fans gave Kevin Garnett a long salute on Monday night in what was probably his last-ever game in Boston.

Garnett smiled broadly even though his team lost. This is not the same Kevin Garnett who played in Boston.

14. Los Angeles Clippers (7)

The disappointing Clippers and awful Lakers play on Christmas Day. The only way the sports day can get worse in L.A. is if everyone wakes up and finds the Rams and Chargers under their tree.

15. Houston Rockets (17)

The Rockets have won three in a row thanks to playing their best defense of the season. And just think how hard the rest of the team has to play defense when James Harden is doing this:

YannickYounique (@Yannick_DYB) I know we say it all the time but James Harden is the worst defender ever pic.twitter.com/e5mMkKiVtk

16. Charlotte Bobcats (12)

Just when we all thought the Bobcats might finally be turning the corner, they went and lost four of five to fall out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference. This is where a clever Internet person would insert the Jordan crying meme.

17. Memphis Grizzlies (13)

The Grizzlies are showing signs that their new small-ball approach could pay off. Now they just have to perfect it to the point of besting the small-ball champion Warriors. Good luck, guys!

18. Washington Wizards (20)

John Wall dished out a career-high 19 assists in Monday’s win over the Kings only to injury his ribs in the final minutes. This is your latest reminder that Washington D.C. sports can’t ever win.

19. Utah Jazz (18)

The Jazz beat the Suns on Monday night, allowing them to retain the No. 8 spot in the West at 12-14. The Western Conference continues to make a strong case that it is the new Eastern Conference.

20. Milwaukee Bucks (21)

Do the Bucks deserve to be in the Top 20? No, probably not. They lost by 18 to the Lakers a week ago, after all. But Milwaukee is the only team to beat the Warriors this season and with Golden State looking for revenge back on Friday, the Bucks had a 10-point fourth quarter lead! (Before ultimately losing by nine.) That deserves a trophy. Maybe even a parade. It at least deserves a spot in the Top 20 of our power rankings, no matter how temporary.

21. New York Knicks (20)

22. Denver Nuggets (24)

23. Sacramento Kings (26)

24. Phoenix Suns (24)

25. Minnesota Timberwolves (25)

26. Portland Trail Blazers (22)

27. New Orleans Pelicans (28)

28. Brooklyn Nets (27)

29. Los Angeles Lakers (29)

30. Philadelphia 76ers (30)