Hinkie steps down as GM

Here lies the process. Sam Hinkie has stepped down from his position as Sixers general manager and president of basketball operations, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein and other media outlets.

The Sixers have a league-worst 10-68 record with four games remaining.

Hinkie has been the GM since the 2013-14 season with the team in consistent rebuilding mode, having won just 47 games during that span.

The Sixers began this season with 18 straight losses and were 1-30 at one point.

Hinkie took the controversial approach of putting an inferior product on the f loor in order to accumulate top draft choices and other assets.

He’s used lottery picks on Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor, while trading away other players, like former rookie of the year Michael Carter-Williams, for more draft picks and assets.

Embiid is yet to play for the Sixers, having undergone multiple foot surgeries, while Dario Saric, acquired in a draft-day trade the same year, has remained in Europe.

With no end in sight to the rebuilding process, the Sixers hired veteran basketball executive Jerry Colangelo in December and reports of Hinkie getting frozen out began to surface.

Needing a new GM, reports indicate Jerry’s son, Bryan, is a top candidate, the future of head coach Brett Brown is now uncertain.

Brown’s been nothing but professional as Hinkie provided him with a roster full of D-League level players, but new management may want to make a change, especially with public sentiment growing for Villanova coach Jay Wright.