Top Reads, Listens, Follows & Takeaways of the week
Trust the Process
Takeaways:
I just finished Tanking to the Top by Yaron Weitzman. If you’re interested in sports, data, and decision making I recommend it. It’s the story of the Philadelphia 76ers reconstruction in the post-Iverson era which led to them becoming a perennial playoff team and championship contender over the past six years.
The Sixers current trajectory is entirely attributable to The Process, an agonizing three season period led by general manager Sam Hinkie in which they won 22% of their games. Hinkie, realizing the need to acquire two legitimate top-15 players to ever compete for an NBA championship, tore the team completely apart in order to rebuild. For three seasons he fielded a G-League quality team of journeymen, trading away any assets he inherited for draft picks. The Sixers miserable seasons, called out as tanking, allowed them to draft the superstar that anchors the team today, Joel Embiid, and eventually acquire James Harden by trading players and assets acquired during The Process.
What stood out to me the most was Hinkie’s willingness to endure the pain of being a contrarian in a league full of followers. Imagine the pressure of starting the 2015 season 0-15 en route to a 10-72 record, the worst in NBA history…in Philly. Hinkie was early to embrace analytics and developed a variant perception around drafting, signing, and developing players which paid off, but my real takeaway was his discipline to stick to The Process. Unfortunately for Hinkie, the career risk he assumed ultimately led to his resignation (his resignation letter is a must read), but his legacy lives on in Philly and with those that veer from the well trodden path.
Reads:
American Nightmare, an Iraq war torture whistleblower undone by his mind (here)
Paul Podolsky with a letter from Chile on copper and EV’s (here)
Axios - The climate change real estate bubble risks billions (here)
Ex-Mexico Security Chief Is Convicted of Protecting El Chapo (here)
FTX’s Downfall Was an Arc of Brotherhood and Betrayal (here)
Venture Fundraising Hits Nine-Year Low (here)
Listens:
Odd Lots: A Former CIA Official on One Year of Russia's War in Ukraine (here)
Zipcode Destiny & the American Dream (here)
Daryl Morey and Andrew Yang (here)
My First Million: Nick Huber on self storage, entrepreneurship, and Twitter deals (here)
Follow, Watch & Other great content:
How Wagner Group Is Using Pop Culture to Recruit New Russian Fighters (here)
Players Tech Summit: In Conversation with Bill Gurley (here)
Strategies for Direct Investment – Family Investment and Impact Series (here)
Notorious BIG freestyling in Bed Stuy at age 17 (here)