I can’t believe I just spent more than 30 minutes listening to Howard Eskin berate Scott O’Neil in what was a mindless, pointless and skull-numbing conversation [audio].

Eskin is just the latest to take exception to what the Sixers are doing, probably because he knows O’Neil is fiery enough to take the bait and come on and defend himself and give Eskin ratings in his sub-prime time slot.

Some things that happened:

  • Eskin tried, roughly 302 times, to get O’Neil to admit that the Sixers are trying to lose games, knowingly full-well that such a thing could surely get O’Neil and the Sixers in trouble. But hey, it makes for great radio, and that’s an area in which Eskin’s been lacking lately.
  • Eskin tried to corner O’Neil into wildly out-of-context statements. When O’Neil reminded Eskin that the Sixers were bad during Allen Iverson’s first few years, Eskin attempted – and failed – to make it seem as though O’Neil directly compared Michael Carter-Williams to Iverson.
  • Eskin tried to bet O’Neil $5,000 (for charity, of course) that the Sixers would lose more games this season than they did last year. O’Neil didn’t take the bait, because the league probably frowns upon team executives making public wagers on their own team.
  • Eskin tried to get O’Neil to list Sam Hinkie’s basketball accomplishments. When the reasonable explanation – that Hinkie is someone the Sixers believe in – didn’t suffice, Eskin got off on his gotcha moment.
  • Eskin tried to get O’Neil to explain how the Sixers are making money, and when O’Neil touted the three largest sponsorships in team history (hello, Party Poker), increased season ticket sales, and the market (a fancy way of saying “massive national TV deals”), Eskin reacted as though the answer didn’t compute.

What Eskin ostensibly fails to understand is that there is no way for the Sixers to buy their way into becoming a contender in the near-term (short of signing LeBron James this summer). Their perpetual mediocrity for most of the last 20 years is solid evidence that such a tactic rarely works. Eskin’s not a smart man, and clearly not a businessman, so maybe that’s why he can’t quite fathom how some short-term struggles can ever lead to success in the long-term, how losing today can ever lead to winning tomorrow. He, along with Larry Brown, certainly can’t understand how business people, and not basketball people, can use basic business principles to position their team for success. He spent wayyyy too much time asking why Hinkie doesn’t go to practices or on road trips, but failed to consider that Hinkie’s time is better spent in an office or, quite frankly, just watching in glorious HD, with multiple camera angles at his disposal. Or why it makes more sense, and is more cost effective, for Hinkie to not follow Brett Brown and the team around. And yet, Eskin feigned outrage when he mentioned that Hinkie once went down to the Sixers locker room at halftime and told Brown to shoot more three-pointers. The hypocrisy wasn’t noted.

Eskin thinks he’s on the fans’ side when he challenges O’Neil on the losing, but what he fails to comprehend (because he’s so goddamn out-of-touch) is that most fans are OK with what the Sixers are doing and supportive of their tactics.

But as was the case with Larry Brown, the real issue is that Eskin’s feelings are hurt:

Eskin: “I don’t see quotes [from Hinkie]. I don’t see interviews. He’s turned down a request for an interview from me, and I am part of the media [editor’s note: barely]. He refuses to speak.”

O’Neil: “I apologize if your ego was bruised by him.”

Eskin: “I don’t give a damn about my ego, Scott [editor’s note: haha!].”

O’Neil: “I apologize on behalf of the organization.”

That was maybe one of my all-time favorite moments in sarcasm.

Neither Eskin nor Brown have an endgame when crying about the Sixers’ methods, however. They lament the (very real) effect losing can have on young players, but never present an alternative… probably because one doesn’t exist. Eskin somehow thinks that a similar or worse season than last year will prove that the plan isn’t working. But in practice, the Sixers’ record this year or next matters little. The plan isn’t to win now, because that’s an almost impossible task. The plan the is win in five or seven years. The Sixers know it’s not going to be pretty, but it’s what has to be done. There’s a lot that can go wrong, and still a lot that remains to be seen of Hinkie and O’Neil and Brown, but the odds are the in the Sixers’ favor. Rebuilding through the draft does work. It worked for the Warriors and Thunder (to name a couple)– it’s just that their methods weren’t quite as obvious or intentional as the Sixers’. For O’Neil and the ownership group, it’s all about doing what gives the Sixers the greatest chance at long-term success. The answer is: exactly what they’re doing. Their odds of winning via the tank are certainly higher than their odds of winning via a bunch of mid-level free agents who complement inexperienced talent. In the near-term, the team’s making money on TV deals. In the long-term, they aim to make money on winning… and on TV deals. This doesn’t compute for Eskin. Or, it does, but he just won’t admit it because Hinkie blew him off for an interview. I’m so irrationally mad about this that I made you a recording, because I’m basically spitting all over the place yelling at no one in-particular, and it would be a shame if my outrage went undetected by other humans:

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Here’s audio of the whole interview with O’Neil.