National Basketball Association

Sam Hinkie 'mortified' by leaked resignation letter

Published Apr. 7, 2016 4:59 p.m. ET

foxsports

Sam Hinkie resigned as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers with a 13-page letter that was e-mailed to the organization's ownership and chairman of basketball operations, Jerry Colangelo.

If you're just waking up from a 24-hour nap, last night the entire thing leaked onto the internet; Hinkie, supposedly, is a little embarrassed by the ordeal (via The Vertical):

He expected ownership to respond to him and work toward a joint public announcement on Thursday, sources said. Within two hours of sending the email, the letter had been leaked – Jerry Colangelo was Hinkie’s strong suspicion, sources said – to a media outlet. Hinkie was mortified to see his words in the public arena, never expecting that a private correspondence to his superiors would become public and turn into something of a mocked manifesto. He wanted to tell his staff of his decision on late Wednesday or Thursday morning, once he talked with ownership about how his departure would be made public.

In the history of human civilization, it's entirely possible that no person has ever quit their job with a very long e-mail that includes quotes from Warren Buffett, Abraham Lincoln and Elon Musk.

This was an unprecedented move by itself, but for it to go public the way it did only adds to the legend.

A couple quick thoughts:

A) There's no way someone as overwhelmingly intelligent as Hinkie hadn't considered that his 13-page (!!) letter of resignation wouldn't end up on the internet 15 seconds after he clicked "send" with (at least) 13 people on the receiving end—for goodness sakes, he plugged his new Twitter handle!

B) This is slightly more amusing than Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's anti-LeBron James rant in comic sans, and deserves to go down as the greatest e-mail in NBA history.

For all his personality-related failings, Hinkie navigates the CBA as well as anyone in the world, and the NBA is a more interesting place when he's in it, making decisions that matter. Hopefully he's back sooner than later.