‘Tanking to the Top’ Author Yaron Weitzman Discusses Sam Hinkie and the Sixers Process

During this coronavirus quarantine that we are all experiencing, reading a book is one of the things that can keep us busy and also connect us to sports. I'm currently reading the book "Tanking to the Top" by Yaron Weitzman, which chronicles the Sixers audacious "process" led by Sam Hinkie.

In the book it takes a trip down memory lane, back to where the origins of the "process" began.  Some like to point at the hiring of Hinkie, others will go back a little further to the Andrew Bynum deal, an eventual failure.  But the book goes back to the Allen Iverson era, and the idea that Billy King had, that was rebuffed by then owner Ed Snider, to trade Iverson and tear down the mediocre team and start over.

Snider was against that line of thinking and demanded the Sixers got experienced players in return for their star, and King landed Andre Miller. Miller was a veteran point guard who was good enough to help the Sixers make the playoffs as an eight-seed, only to be bounced in the first-round of the NBA playoffs.

King was fired, the team was sold and the process years were about to be born.

Josh Harris brought in Doug Collins and Rod Thorn, two basketball lifers, who were unable to pull the Sixers out of mediocrity, so they made a blockbuster deal, to obtain Bynum - it didn't work.

Harris turned to Hinkie and a new era of Sixers basketball begun.

Many fans embraced the idea of losing now, to win big later. The Sixers added picks, assets, and began to have a goal in mind, getting out of the middle, while searching for talent and taking big swings in the draft for top level talent.

The book brings you through some of Hinkie's key moments, his positives and negatives, through the Bryan Colangelo days, the Markelle Fultz debacle and to where we are today.

Sure, Sam Hinkie's idea of the "process" may have been cut off at the knees, but the book brings you on an interesting journey of one of the most polarizing rebuilds.