No it is absolutely not. It is tied to the fact he has a deep affinity for CLEVELAND THE CITY. If he was drafted by the Knicks, he would not have gone back to the fucking Knicks.

if Hinkie was good at drafting players there would be a justification for his tanking. Tanking for picks is not a bad plan. Worked for the Colts. But it has a very specific shelf life. Hinkie’s plan was to tank for draft picks, then trade the good picks for other picks, then trade those picks for more picks...it wasnt…

Moneyball is trying to win with innovative techniques in a rigged system. The Process is trying to suck on purpose to get lucky in a more balanced system.

I’m saying that his decision to come back is inextricably linked to having been drafted by the Cavs in the first place.

Reminded me a lot of mid 2000s Clippers teams, perpetual high lottery picks, perpetual losing, players not developing because they realize there will just be more lottery picks coming along the following year.

Bingo. As a Sixers fan, I realized that the “Process” was a total scam in year two. The general idea of it being better to be high in the lottery than be a fringe playoff team is fairly sound, although you don’t want to stay there forever. But as soon as Hinkie shipped the freaking ROOKIE OF THE YEAR and every single…

Not just injured players. Injured big men, who are rapidly becoming about as relevant as fullbacks in football.

Except it doesn’t...his coming back to Cleveland was him coming home, as in he’s from Akron. If the Pistons had the #1 that year and he went to Detroit, he still would have wound up in Cleveland to try and win them a title becuase it’s his home town, one with a cursed history.

The fact that the Cavs were able to draft…

This is totally disingenuous.

One of those number one picks isn’t even on the team, and another signed as a free agent. Let’s also completely ignore the fact that Kevin Love, JR Smith, Shumpert, Frye, and Mozgov (in other words, the majority of their rotation....plus Mozgov) were all acquired via trades or free agency.

That makes no sense. James coming back to Cleveland is coming back to his hometown, not out of some false sense of loyalty to a Cavs organization that he has basically leveraged and bullied into doing what he wants now.

Ah yes, truly this team will be the toast of the NBA, what with its half-dozen redundant 20-year-olds, none of whom have ever shown anything on an NBA court, sharing two frontcourt spots.

Well, 1 of their #1 overall picks is out of the NBA, another one plays for Minesota, and the 3rd didn’t lead the team to anything until a guy they drafted 12 years prior decided to come back via free agency. You can throw Tristan Thompson in the mix of drafted guys if you want, but thats still only a 50% success rate.…

I’m as guilty of it as any sports fan... Stating, unironically, that I could likely do as good a job as any number of managers or general managers (at my age, though, I’ve accepted that I probably couldn’t outperform any active athletes... unless we’re counting Nascar drivers as “athletes,” in which case I’m…

How many of the players on the Cavs team were drafted, and how many came in via free agency?

You’re ignoring the fact that LeBron was drafted 13 years ago and left Cleveland at one point, the Kyrie led Cavs sucked, and the other #1 overall pick they made is already out of the league. This championship Cavs team was assembled through free agency, not the draft.

The Process cannot fail. It can only be failed.

The only part I think you missed was the piece about how his vaunted process has led the team in the position where it now has to deal one of its previos ‘gems’ - Noel, Embiid, or Okefor - for peanuts because they drafted literally 5 big men with the 6 picks they had in the first round.

Is The Process complete know? Can they start trying to win? Which of their assets should the Sixers build around, and which should they trade for veteran pieces to put around those building blocks? What’s that? They have no fucking clue if any of their players are good, or who they should play with, because they spent…

Only a management consultant could come up with a strategy that makes you 10% more likely to “succeed” but has three times the opportunity costs and you have to do it forever. I’m surprised he didn’t try to have the team coached by a Toyota assembly line manager and a client engagement coordinator from McKinsey