BY: Colin Bish, Sports Staff
“We talk a lot about process – not outcome – and trying to consistently take all the best information you can and consistently make good decisions. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, but you reevaluate them all.”
This quote comes from former 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie after his introduction on May 14, 2013. If that name rings a bell, your intuition holds weight. Hinkie inadvertently created the infamous basketball term, “Trust the Process.”
I’ll be the first to say that Hinkie’s idea of the process was not well-executed. The way he would trade any player of value to get back as many draft picks as possible was paramount to an NBA 2K rebuild- only this happened in real life. Some fans backed Hinkie; others wanted him out immediately. Hinkie was eventually let go in 2016, but the years to come gave the impression that his vision had merit.
After Hinkie was relieved of his duties, the 76ers would make the playoffs seven consecutive seasons from 2018 to 2024. A large chunk of their success came on the backs of those Hinkie drafted, particularly Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Although Hinkie didn’t go about his tenure in the best way, he certainly set a precedent for what the NBA should be.
If we take the idea of the “Process,” we can simplify it to a degree where teams aren’t selling any player worth a damn.
Process, in the case of an NBA franchise, is being stuck in a perpetual state of mediocrity, but slowly building your way back to relevancy thanks to a myriad of management choices. The biggest being drafting and developing young players, making smart and consistent player transactions and finding the right head coach.
With all this in mind, a team can go from mediocre to average. They might stay average for a while, but eventually they will become playoff-caliber, even championship contenders. It’s all a matter of time.
Once Giannis Antetokounmpo started finding his groove, it took the Milwaukee Bucks seven years to get over the hump. It took around the same time frame for the Denver Nuggets to do the same with Nikola Jokic. Phoenix with Devin Booker, Memphis with Ja Morant, Toronto with Kawhi Leonard, etc. You get the idea.
So can someone tell me why organizations are so unhealthily impatient in today’s NBA?
As of my typing this, the longest-tenured head coaches in the league are Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra and Steve Kerr. No other current head coach eclipses seven years of service outside of those three.
To me, that’s insane. It paints a dark picture that the importance of coaches is slowly dying. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but there’s no shot that NBA teams have forgotten the most important part of winning a championship: the journey.
Yeah, that might be corny. But there’s real merit to it. Every decision a front office makes, no matter how big or small, plays into winning a championship. It could be as momentous as the Raptors acquiring Kawhi Leonard or as monotone as hiring a new social media manager. Point is, all these decisions are the journey that make up an NBA franchise’s crowning moment.
And the most important part about these decisions is that they take place over a matter of time. In fact, these events occur over the course of years. You can’t just snap your fingers and beam the championship trophy into your lap. It takes a lot of sacrifice and tough choices to win a title; it takes even more to maintain that level of success.
Which is where my gripe with the current NBA comes to play.
In 2021, Mike Budenholzer led the Bucks to their first NBA title in decades in his third year of coaching. Two years later, after losing in the first round to the eight-seed Miami Heat, he was let go.
Michael Malone led the Nuggets to their first ever NBA title in 2023. Two years later, he was axed weeks before the playoffs started.
Monty Williams, in just his second season in Phoenix, helped guide the Suns to the Finals and were two wins away from their first championship. He was fired two years later.
Mike Brown helped the Sacramento Kings break, at the time, the longest playoff drought in sports. In only his first (count it, FIRST) season. In 2024 he was fired just a month or so into the season.
It goes on and on and on, and honestly, it’s just sad. These coaches put in countless hours of work to get their teams into the position that they were in, whether that be playing in the Finals or making it out of the gutter, all to be axed because they didn’t win a championship the very next season.
And it comes down to what I mentioned earlier that not only are franchises impatient, but they’re scared of just being average.
Well, allow me to hit everyone with the cold water: there’s nothing wrong with being average. Sure, a lot of outside entities feed into our anxieties and worries that we need to be in the top percent of people and to be extraordinary or else no one’s going to care.
I’m not saying you need to be average your whole life; reach for the stars if you want. But don’t be surprised if you plummet back to Earth just like so many others before you.
Everyone wants to be extraordinary, to make a ton of money, to live in large mansions and all that stuff. But what we fail to realize is that those people who live those lifestyles often do so because of factors in life that helped their future. And not everyone has those same benefits so, unfortunately, not everyone is going to be making six-seven figures even if it’s what we all want.
You might be asking, where am I going with this life lesson? What does this have to do with the NBA? I’m glad you asked, because it has a lot to do with the league right now.
Like I said, not everyone can make six-seven figures a year. It’s not statistically possible. Just like it’s statistically impossible for more than one NBA team to win the Finals.
That doesn’t mean teams should be throwing in the towel because the odds aren’t in their favor; in fact, it should motivate them to do their best to create a culture from the coaches to the players to the front office that fosters camaraderie, success and accountability. That way, they’d be even closer to winning a title.
Guys like Budenholzer, Malone and Williams were already at that championship pedestal. Others like Brown or even Taylor Jenkins with the Grizzlies were attempting to create and sustain a culture in their respective organizations.
Yet their bosses’ insatiable desire for “title now, no excuses,” (going full caveman-brain to be frank) completely wrecked whatever they were trying to build or destroyed the foundations of something that was already stable.
My idea would be to give a coach three years to establish and maintain a culture. If he can do that, give him another three, maybe four years to see if he can take the team to a championship. If he fails after those following three-four years, I would ponder letting him go, but not immediately pull the trigger.
I could be totally overlooking some aspects of this process; I’m no general manager, just a kid in college with a lot to say. However, I truly feel that the precedent being set for head coaches in today’s NBA is very scary. It seems like when teams make the playoffs, their ownership gets this idea that NOW they can compete for a title, even though their franchise barely won the Play-In Tournament. And they want to let their coach go for it? Really?
It just makes no sense to me. As I mentioned, not everyone can win a title. But, once you win a title, if your coach doesn’t lead you to another in two-three years, he’s done? Where’s the logic in that?
Maybe, instead of pointing fingers, you should try to look inward and change something about yourself. Change how you operate, think differently about others’ perception of your work. Only then could I see this ugly trend changing for the better. But, as we’ve seen in decades past and across multiple sports, you can’t always trust ownership to actually self-reflect. Looking right at you, Mat Ishbia.
Leave a Reply