(AP)

The player said it. His coach reiterated it.

Michael Carter-Williams, in the same breath, thanked media members who voted him the NBA’s Rookie of the Year and then followed it up by saying he’s unsatisfied with winning a personal award. The 76ers’ point guard spoke Monday about pining for more, not only individual greatness but aspirations of helping the Sixers reach the postseason.

That plan took a detour Tuesday, when the Sixers announced that Carter-Williams had undergone successful surgery to repair a labrum injury on his right shoulder. The team said there’s no timetable for the return of the 22-year-old.

What does the surgery mean for Carter-Williams?

For starters, it’s unlikely he will be available to participate in either of the summer leagues. (The Sixers are expected to field teams for the Orlando and Las Vegas leagues.) There’s no hard-and-fast recovery time for a labrum surgery recipient, but it generally requires two to four months. That timeline would put Carter-Williams in line to be ready for the opening of training camp.

Beyond the summer leagues, Carter-Williams can forget about fine-tuning his game. Monday, at MCW’s Rookie of the Year press conference, Sixers coach Brett Brown spoke at length about the summer months being the time when players make their most money, when they can watch gametape and focus on improving one or two skills that had been weaknesses in the past season.

For Carter-Williams, those well-documented weaknesses were his shooting percentage and his defense. Rehab on his surgically repaired shoulder will prevent Carter-Williams from hoisting the thousands of shots he was likely to take this summer. In addition, Brown’s desire to have Carter-Williams work on his on-the-ball defense and keeping players in front of him will have to be put on the back-burner as he turns his attention toward injury rehab.

The immediate ramifications of Carter-Williams’ surgery won’t be felt in the next few months. Instead, the will bear out when the Sixers’ season begins.

(Times staff / ERIC HARTLINE)

Nerlens Noel thinks Michael Carter-Williams can aid his development next season.

Noel, the 76ers center, is coming off a rookie season in which he missed all 82 games while rehabbing his surgically repaired left knee. Carter-Williams is fresh off a rookie campaign in which he put up the type of numbers that will likely garner a Rookie of the Year award.

Noel and Carter-Williams, a pair of Boston-area kids, played for the same AAU team in their youth, so they won’t have to develop a camaraderie. Instead, they have to pick up where they left off.

“I think Michael will definitely be able to help me as I come back,” Noel said April 17, on the team’s breakup day following its season finale. “(He’s been) just showing me a couple little things you need to be on the court experiencing.”

The biggest thing for Noel, a 6-11, 230-pounder, is to avoid feeling the pressure of having to live up to Carter-Williams’ big first season as a pro. He led all rookies in points, assists, rebounds and steals and is considered a heavy favorite to win Rookie of the Year. Carter-Williams said his season “takes pressure” off Noel.

“He’s coming in and he’s going to play his part,” Carter-Williams said of Noel. “I’m definitely going to do everything I can to help him out. A big part of his game is off his teammates, especially off me. He has to keep developing his game, I’ll help him out along the way. He’s not going to have too much pressure. He’s going to go in there, play some defense and do the things he needs to do (like) rebound the ball and score the ball. He’ll be great. He’ll be fine.”

(AP)

Byron Mullens is, admittedly, a little salty about the term “rebuilding.”

The fifth-year big man was around for two seasons of Charlotte’s transformation: a 7-59 lockout-shortened campaign in 2011-12, and a 21-61 record in 2012-13. Then the Bobcats opted against picking up Mullens’ option for this season. (He later signed with the Los Angeles Clippers, who traded him to the 76ers at the deadline.)

Now, as Mullens wrapped up a 19-win season with the Sixers, he was left to watch his former team in Charlotte qualify for the playoffs as the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, with a 43-39 record. And Mullens said he’d prefer not to repeat history.

“It sucked to be in Charlotte. It sucked to be in a rebuilding process,” Mullens said Thursday, when the Sixers conducted end-of-the-year exit interviews at their PCOM practice facility. “What sucked worse was to be in the rebuilding process and not be in the process now that they’re in, in a playoff race and in the playoffs. I’d say, if I’m going to give it my all in the rebuilding process, I’d like to be in it all the way – even after the rebuilding process is over. We’ll see what happens.”

When asked whether he’d like to return for next season, Mullens would not say. He holds a $1.06 million player option, though he could opt out and test free agency.

“We definitely talked about it, and we talked about the options we have with how many draft picks we’ve got in the draft and all of that,” Mullens said, of a discussion he had with Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie. “I’d just like to keep that between me and him, and see what happens. Obviously, everybody knows they have a lot of draft picks. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

“It’s tough. Me and Sam talked about (rebuilding), as well. My two years in Charlotte, they had a pretty young team. Obviously it was a rebuilding kind of like we have here now. People just have to be patient. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a while for young guys. You’re looking at 19-year-old kids playing with grown men. It’s tough. You have to respect it and be patient.”

Two numbers that might work against Mullens moving forward: The Sixers went 0-18 in games in which he played, and 4-4 in games in which he did not appear.

(Getty Images)

With a quizzical look on his face, Josh Harris tried to understand the question being lobbed his way. And find a way to answer it. The query was about Andrew Bynum, so Harris had to approach this one delicately.

Harris was being asked whether there was anything the Sixers could reclaim from the Bynum situation, the one in which they spent $16.5 million for zero minutes played from the big man.

“Sunk cost,” Harris said. “That’s all sunk cost.”

In business-speak, that’s money a business will never get back. Harris and new general manager Sam Hinkie spoke at length about Bynum, their unrestricted free agent center, at Hinkie’s introductory press conference Tuesday at PCOM. And whether they can hope to get anything from him next season.

Mainly, the conversation hovered around the Sixers’ involvement with Bynum this offseason.

Hinkie, an analytics guy, is all about the process by which decisions are made as opposed to the outcome of those decisions. Calculated risks sometimes backfire. But if the process is employed, taking into account traditional basketball know-how plus beyond-the-box-score logic and other related metrics, they’re almost viewed as acceptable losses, Hinkie said.

That’s why Hinkie lauded Harris for his approach to the Bynum trade, and his willingness to say he'd make the trade again if given the chance. Hinkie didn’t rule out ending the Sixers’ relationship with Bynum.

Bynum, 25, missed the entire season with bilateral bone bruises in both knees and underwent season-ending surgery in March. The Sixers own Bynum’s Bird rights, which means they can sign him for more years and more money than any other team in the league. That, Hinkie said, makes Bynum appealing.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to be said about the trade,” Hinkie said. “I suspect this makes me boring, but I think of Andrew like the thousands of other young men walking around the world that are unrestricted free agents that have the potential to play NBA basketball, and he is one of those. I am duty-bound to consider and look at them.

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The 76ers have agreed to terms with Sam Hinkie, who will become their general manager and president of basketball operations, and the team could make his hire official as early as next week, according to a league source.

To make room for Hinkie, and expedite their search for a new head coach, the Sixers have cut ties with general manager Tony DiLeo. According to a league source, DiLeo – who had been with the organization for 23 seasons – will not remain with the Sixers in any capacity.

Hinkie comes to the Sixers on a multi-year contract believed to be at least three years, a league source said. Hinkie had worked with the Houston Rockets for the last four seasons as their vice president of basketball operations while serving as an advocate for analytics within the organization.

The Sixers are believed to have sought Hinkie last offseason before promoting DiLeo. They had to wait until Houston had been eliminated from the playoffs before initiating discussions with him, but negotiations proceeded quickly. Hinkie, according to a league source, was the Sixers' “only target” for the general manager position.

The Sixers have been without a head coach since Doug Collins resigned April 18, the day after the team's regular-season finale. It's believed they have narrowed down a list of candidates to fill the post, but it seemed peculiar that they would allow DiLeo to lead the coaching search while his contract was set to expire July 1. And Sixers owner Josh Harris didn't exactly give DiLeo a ringing endorsement during Harris' end-of-the-year press conference.

With Hinkie in place, the Sixers can move forward in their search. Harris has said he would like to have a coach in place by the June 27 NBA Draft. The reported list of favorites for the job, according to another league source, remain the same: Brian Shaw, Indiana's associate head coach; Michael Curry, the Sixers' associate head coach under Collins; Mike Malone, Golden State's top assistant; and Jeff Hornacek, an assistant with Utah.

DiLeo had been with the Sixers for the last 23 seasons, serving as interim head coach, assistant general manager and vice president of basketball operations among other jobs, before assuming the GM duties last summer.

It was believed DiLeo had spent the season being groomed by outgoing Sixers president Rod Thorn, who would be transitioning into a consultant's role with the team. Instead, DiLeo is out of a job.

(Associated Press)

Well, it's official.

That sentence applies on a couple levels. Here are the more pertinent ones:

• The season is over. Yeah, you knew that already.
• You knew this, too: Doug Collins officially resigned Thursday in a press conference at the team's practice facility, ending his three-year tenure as head coach and beginning his five-year run as an adviser to Sixers owner Josh Harris.
• The Sixers – in case you didn't want to believe it – will look into signing free-agent center Andrew Bynum in the offseason, Harris confirmed. The owner said he and the team have not ruled out going after Bynum, saying the ownership group knows just about everything they need to know about Bynum's bum knees, which is somewhat of an advantage in the negotiating process, Harris said.

Before his presser had ended, Collins made sure to put in his endorsement of
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(Associated Press)

After Sunday's game – a meaningless 91-77 victory over Cleveland – it happened.

Right there beside the scorer's table, after a handshake and an embrace with Cavaliers coach Byron Scott, but not before the confetti cannons could spew their contents, Doug Collins smiled. Those expressions of joy have been few and far between this season.

With two games remaining, and two wins required to match last season's win total, the Sixers are at a crossroads. They're benching veterans (like Royal Ivey and Nick Young) with expiring contracts, playing rookies (like Justin Holiday and Arnett Moultrie) for 20-plus minutes and looking to next year – whether that involves Collins or not.

So … what did the Sixers learn about their postseason-less campaign?

“That nothing is guaranteed,” Jrue Holiday said. “Even though the two years before that, we did a good job making it to the first round and then the second round, and even this year, when everybody thought we had a really good chance with Andrew (Bynum) probably making it pretty deep in the playoffs – nothing is guaranteed.”

The Sixers have plenty to improve upon before the playoffs become a reality for next season. They have an important offseason, a lottery selection, a Bynum decision, possibly a coach search and who knows what else.

Though he wasn't referring to the upcoming summer offseason, Holiday's words about turning around the Sixers seem to apply.

“Take it one game at a time,” he said, “and don't let time get away.”

(Associated Press)

Andrew Bynum is to have surgery today, ending the 7-footer's tenure with the 76ers before he even had an opportunity to play for them.

Or did it.

After Monday's win over the Trail Blazers, Thaddeus Young said he would welcome back Bynum – an unrestricted free agent – for next season, assuming he was fully healed from the arthroscopic surgery on both knees.

“Many guys have had knee surgeries and things done to them surgically and they've come back even better,” Young said. “It's all about (Bynum) getting back to the gym, getting back his rhythm and getting into the groove of basketball.

“Me personally, I think having him on the team and having his presence inside is huge. That's always been a knock on us, that we don't have a true big man. If we can get him back 100-percent healthy, it's going to be scary for a whole lot of teams next year.”

Evan Turner didn't sound as committed to the idea.

“I'm just pulling for him in general. I don't want to sit here and scream out, 'Come back, come back, come back.' Dude's going through surgery, know what I'm saying?” Turner said. “It's going to be tough enough rehab and everything. You just worry about the player above your own selfish needs.”

So what do you think? Should the Sixers make a play at Bynum in the offseason? They don't have the cap space to make a max contract offer, but should they commit some of their money to him? Post your thoughts.