National Basketball Association

Mark Jones Completely Ignores Hinkie's Part in the Success

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:47 p.m. ET

Fansided, Josh Wilson/FanSided via The Sixer Sense

Mark Jones, and ESPN commentator, recently praised the Philadelphia 76ers for their success, but completely ignored that Sam Hinkie was a benefactor.

The Philadelphia 76ers had a game flexed to national television on Friday night against the Houston Rockets. This was a big thing for them, considering that the team didn’t have any games on national TV prior to this season for three years.

Now, the Sixers are kicking other previously scheduled teams out of their ESPN slots and taking them.

Mark Jones talked with Philly.com prior to calling the play-by-play for ESPN on Friday night about the Sixers recent success. Here’s what he had to say:

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I would think they’re the biggest reclamation and restoration story of the year so far. I think when you look at how they’ve been a punchline for the last 3 1/2 years before this, what Joel Embiid has done nationally to restore their reputation – not just with his play, but with his outsize personality – that has really helped the cause a great deal.

And the way that the Colangelos in the front office, Bryan in particular, has laid the foundation for things going forward, they’re in a good place right now.

Philly.com pointed to Sam Hinkie, saying that he should get some credit as well. Here’s what Jones had to say:

Yes, that’s a valid argument, but at some point, I think you accumulate enough assets to start winning. I don’t think you need to hoard three years’ worth of assets to start making the move.

I’m not a big fan of tanking, because ultimately along the way you’re teaching losing; you’re not teaching winning. I think the previous administration, Sam Hinkie, I think they probably took that a little far, a little extreme.

It’s really interesting that Jones would point to Joel Embiid as one of the leading reasons (and really was his only point of evidence for why the team has been so good) that the team has turned it around this year, but completely discredit the man who took a gamble on drafting Embiid, a move that now looks incredibly smart.

Colangelo has not even been around the Sixers for a full year, and made some decent moves on his own — signing Gerald Henderson and Jerryd Bayless — but hasn’t really done much. The biggest things he did this offseason were draft Ben Simmons and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, but he did both of those things with assets Hinkie built up.

The Sixers have been largely ignored by the national media over the last several years, and now that they’re good, the national media is starting to talk about the team. But when they do talk about them, they often come off as incredibly uninformed because of the lack of paying attention that occurred while the team was rebuilding.