The title of today’s post is most associated with a strategy promoted by former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie, designed to turn a flailing basketball team into NBA champions in record time. Hinkie took control of the 76ers after a 34-48 season, resulting in a ninth place finish in the NBA eastern conference. The centerpiece of the “process” was trading star players for a spate of high round draft choices and young players with the potential to become the next fan darlings.
Hinkie warned the Philly faithful there might be some hard times before they enjoyed the fruits of his strategy. And he was correct. The team’s record under the three years of his tenure at the helm was 47 wins and 199 losses including a 10-72 record during the 2015-16 season, the lowest winning percentage in the league’s modern history. Hoop fans in the City of Brotherly Love, known for demonstrating their displeasure with unsuccessful hometown sports teams, were less than impressed. To alleviate their concern, former 76ers guard Tony Wroten, during an interview with ESPN’s Pablo Torre, backed Hinkie’s strategy with the phrase “trust the process.”
The 76ers’ process strikes me as the perfect metaphor for Trump 2.0, in general, and most recently the administration’s approach to Iran. Employ an unconventional strategy to generate big wins in record time. Let’s start with personnel. Like Philadelphia, Trump 2.0 replaced seasoned veterans for younger players. Goodbye, James Mattis at Defense. Hello, Pete Hegseth. The new Bill Barr at Justice? Pam Bondi. Replace John Kelly at Homeland Security with Kristi Noem. And when it came to second-in-command, Trump traded Mike Pence for J.D. Vance.
That is where the analogy ends. Nothing explains his draft choices for other cabinet positions more than his March 17 comments at the Future Investment Initiative in Florida.
You don’t have to wait a lifetime to find out if somebody is a winner or a loser. You got a lot of losers, mostly losers, fortunately. It’s a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.
Trump’s self-fulfilling prophecy is evident by the number of losers in his cabinet such as failed presidential candidates Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Or Kelly Loeffer, who lost her Georgia Senate bid to Democrat Raphael Warnock.
However, the arena in which Hinkie and Trump share the most damning flaw lies in their inability to recognize the obvious. Consider Hinkie’s “DOH!” moment in his resignation letter. “A league with 30 intense competitors requires a culture of finding new, better ways to solve repeating problems.” Really? Three years after taking the GM position, he realizes professional basketball is ripe with “intense competition.” Neither did he acknowledge the fact that super-human tall men, running and jumping on hardwood floors, are prone to injury. Hinkie’s first round draft pick in 2014, Kansas center Joel Embiid, missed his first two seasons due to injury and played just 31 of 82 games in his third season. 2016 first round pick, LSU point guard Ben Simmons, never stepped on the court his first year. Duke center Jahlil Okafor, the 2015 first round pick, fared better having played in 53 games during his first season in Philly.
Like the 76ers, when it comes to military operations, the United States has a bench loaded with talent, both human and technological. However, there is little comfort in this roster when the commander-in-chief is the only person who cannot see that a desperate Iran would retaliate by blocking shipments of oil and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz. Or does not understand that NATO is a defensive alliance. Or thinks what worked in Venezuela will work in Iran.
Five days ago, treasury secretary Scott Bessent channeled Sam Hinkie in order to justify the economic disruption associated with the war with Iran.
Many people, especially the Democrats, underestimate the will of the American people for short-term volatility, for 50 years of safety that we are going to have on the other side of this.
He might as well have said, “Trust the process.” What Bessent, of course, does not want you to know is 13 years after Hinkie introduced the process, the 76ers still have not accomplished their goal of an NBA championship. Yes, they have improved from a cellar-dweller to become a contender with winning records the last seven seasons, but have advanced no further in the playoffs than the conference semifinals. [NOTE: There streak of winning seasons will end this year as they enter April with a 24-58 record.] Nor has Trump, Bessent or anyone else in the administration clearly defined the Iran equivalent of an NBA championship. Whatever that goal may be, Trump promised to do it in 2-4 weeks. As we are now in week five, failure to meet that timeframe explains why Bessent and others need to promise a safe and prosperous post-Iran future which may or may not materialize.
On April 6, 2016, less than three years after his hiring as general manager, Sam Hinkie submitted a 12-page letter of resignation to the team’s equity partners. Much of it was dedicated to defending his strategy as innovative and requiring patience. To make his point, he cites the 16th president of the United States.
In the short term, investing in that sort of innovation often doesn’t look like much progress, if any. Abraham Lincoln said “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
One can imagine Donald Trump is already drafting his farewell address. He will take credit for the good things he had nothing to do with. He will find excuses for the bad things he caused. He will congratulate himself for being a great innovator and will chastise his critics for failing to appreciate his vision and not having the patience to reap the rewards of his genius. He will build a library in Miami including an entrance etched with the words, “The Greatest President in American History.” However, a more appropriate epitaph might be, “The Sam Hinkie of American Politics.”
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP