“We were not the organization that it is today,” Jahlil Okafor commented on arriving at the Philadelphia 76ers in 2015. The former number 3 pick was on Theo Pinson and AJ Richardson’s podcast, ‘Run Your Race’, when he expressed his feelings about being a part of ‘The Process’.
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Sam Hinkie, then-GM of the Sixers, had popularized “trust the process” as a slogan for the team. But it was eventually understood to be shorthand for tanking, as Philly deliberately lost games during his tenure to secure higher draft picks. That’s how they landed Jahlil Okafor in 2015.
Unfortunately for the big man, who had won three FIBA gold medals and the 2015 NCAA championship with Duke, it was a move away from his winning ways. “I didn’t deal with it the best way. I’ve always won, I had just won a national championship so to go to Philly and we start off 0-16, 0-17, it was rough,” Jahlil Okafor revealed.
Thankfully, Okafor’s head coach from Duke, Mike Krzyzewski aka Coach K, warned the ACC Player of the Year about the situation he was entering at that point.
“I remember Coach K calling me before the season, basically just warning me like ‘Hey, I know you’re competitive, I know you want to win but,’ basically saying like, ‘Put that to the side and just work on your craft, and work on getting your numbers and work on trying to become a better NBA player…”
Okafor further shared, “Which I did, I feel like I played well but those losses still hurt. It took like the joy of it, knowing that we weren’t playing for anything.”
Even though Hinkie had landed the third pick in the draft, the team was still not done with its ‘Process’ as they won just 10 games during Okafor’s rookie season. Hinkie retired at the end of that season, finishing his tenure in Philly with a record of 47 wins and 199 losses, leaving fans and pundits to answer the question – Did ‘The Process’ work?
How was the post-Hinkie era for Okafor and the Philadelphia 76ers?
Okafor would average a promising 17.5 points, 7 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.2 blocks as a rookie. However, after 53 games, he was ruled out of play due to a tear in his meniscus, limiting his minutes in the next season as well. Unfortunately, Jah never averaged ten points after his first two years in the league.
The team decided not to pick up the fourth year of Jahlil Okafor’s rookie contract and eventually traded him to Brooklyn as they geared their roster towards their center of the future; Joel Embiid.
Okafor became a free agent in 2018, and signed with the Pelicans where he stayed until the 2019-20 season. After that, Okafor saw a few short stints with the Detroit Pistons and the Atlanta Hawks before moving to China and playing for the Zhejiang Lions in 2022.
For the Sixers, Joel Embiid became ‘The Process’ taking the team from perennial tanking to consecutive playoff appearances. Hinkie’s last season in Philly helped the team land Ben Simmons in 2016, earmarking the end of their rebuild.
However, over the last few seasons, the ceiling on the Sixers roster has been hard to gauge. Despite all his individual success, Embiid has not been able to lead the team during the playoffs, making seven straight appearances in the post-season without reaching the Conference Finals. Some fans believe that the addition of Paul George will help the team break that drought. It seems they are still ‘trusting the process’.
