What happened next is one of the most confusing chapters in NBA history. Hinkie essentially clammed up. It’s commonly referred to as “the process,” as in “trust the process,” although Hinkie never used that phrase. Instead he drafted, traded, hired, and managed in ways nobody understood in real time. He traded away fantastic players like Jrue Holiday and for injured ones like Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel. He accrued high draft picks and used a lot of them on centers. He grew the league’s biggest-ever collection of second-round picks. He traded away the rookie of the year. And he took the time to explain just about none of his strategy to the public, who knew only that the team was losing an insane, record-setting number of games, which ultimately just pissed people off. In April 2016, Hinkie quit under a ton of pressure, his resignation letter was a treatise on the power of long-term thinking over short. And … now, the 76ers are contenders, thanks to the players, picks, cap room, and assets Hinkie collected.