Now that the 76ers have reached the jumping-off point that general manager Sam Hinkie constructed slowly and carefully for most of three NBA seasons, the biggest mystery that remains is not why owner Josh Harris bought into the analytical poison pill he swallowed in 2013 but why he spit it out just as the medicine was about to take effect one way or the other.
Sure, there's something comforting about hiring a passel of Colangelos to tidy up the team's tattered image within the league, but Tuesday's draft lottery is not really theirs to claim. It represents a distillation of everything good and bad about Hinkie's tenure, a calculated staredown with the laws of probability that could lead to great things or something much less.