Sam Hinkie went to the Philadelphia 76ers in 2013 with a novel idea.

He would not try to improve the team incrementally. Instead, he would tear it down, trading talented players for draft picks, and in the process earn other high picks by posting poor records.

Then he would flip the switch, cash in on the draft picks, use ample salary cap room to bring in free agents, and transform a terrible team into a championship one.

Hinkie never got to flip the switch.

Hinkie resigned as the team’s general manager Wednesday night. Under his stewardship, the Sixers won 19, 18 and, this season so far, 10 games.

His 7,000-word resignation letter, obtained by ESPN, mounts a vigorous, if meandering, defense of his methods. It also includes references to Lincoln, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and the moa, an extinct flightless bird.

A look at some of Hinkie’s convictions, as expressed in his letter, and how they played out in his three seasons in charge:

“A competitive league like the N.B.A. necessitates a zig while our competitors comfortably zag.”

The Sixers had been on a treadmill of .500 ball for years when Hinkie arrived; perhaps bottoming out was the best way to reach the top?

But Hinkie’s zig meant rolling out an atrocious team year after year. For owners and fans who initially supported his methods, the losing got to be too much. (To be clear, the 76ers players always tried hard; it was the front office that didn’t seem to want to win.)

A serious run this year at the record for the worst single-season record in the N.B.A. — 9-73, set by the franchise in 1972-73 — was the last straw. Few will mourn Hinkie’s departure. Many will hope the team stars zagging again.

“You can be right for the wrong reasons. In our business, you’re often lionized for it. You can be wrong for the right reasons. … The decision to draft Joel third, though, still looks to me to be the correct one in hindsight.”

Joel Embiid, drafted No. 3 over all in 2014, missed the end of his single year at Kansas. He had foot surgery two months after the draft. Setbacks followed, and he still has not played a minute in the N.B.A.

“Use a decision journal. Write in your own words what you think will happen and why before a decision. Refer back to it later. See if you were right, and for the right reasons.”

Hinkie’s two other marquee draft picks were, like Embiid, big men. Nerlens Noel, drafted No. 6 in 2013, has struggled on offense; Jahlil Okafor, No. 3 in 2015, has struggled on defense. Worse, the two have been unable to play effectively together. Okafor has also had trouble off the court, including nightclub altercations and driving 108 miles an hour on the Ben Franklin Bridge. All the young players on the team have seemed to suffer from a lack of veteran leadership to ease them into the N.B.A.

Hinkie does not share in his letter how his draft choices are recorded in his decision journal.

“Check out the 10,000 Year Clock. It is no mere thought experiment, but an actual clock being designed to be placed inside a mountain in West Texas, wound, and left to tick and chime for ten thousand years. Why? Because to design something that lasts that long makes us all consider what the world will look like between now and then.”

Hinkie’s long view — to be fair, it’s probably less than 10,000 years — meant that a good player was a liability, not an asset. The Sixers’ best player when Hinkie arrived was Jrue Holiday. He was traded. Thaddeus Young had his best year in Hinkie’s first season. He was traded. Hinkie scored a coup with the 11th pick in the 2013 draft, Michael Carter-Williams, who won the Rookie of the Year Award. He was traded. A second-round pick, K.J. McDaniels, was a surprise star of the 2014-15 season. Traded.

Hinkie’s own clock came up 9,997 years short.

“While contrarian views are absolutely necessary to truly deliver, conventional wisdom is still wise.”

In December, the Sixers turned to an old-school thinker, 76-year-old Jerry Colangelo, supposedly to bring some conventional wisdom that would complement Hinkie’s quirky views. The team immediately brought back Ish Smith, a capable point guard the Sixers has acquired for nothing and then declined to re-sign. Notably, the team actually gave up assets to get Smith — two second-round picks. This was a clear sign that the Hinkie process might be coming to an end.

“The N.B.A. can be a league of desperation, those that are in it and those that can avoid it. So many find themselves caught in the zugzwang, the point in the game where all possible moves make you worse off. Your positioning is now the opposite of that.”

The team is reasonably well positioned for the future with an abundance of first-round draft picks and plenty of salary cap room. Maybe it can indeed avoid the zugzwang.

Maybe Embiid will get healthy. Maybe Dario Saric, a Croatian power forward acquired at the 2014 draft but still playing in Europe, will sign with the team and be special. Maybe some future draft picks will turn into stars. Maybe the team can sign some big free agents, though why a star would want to join a team this abysmal is an open question. If the team does get good, Hinkie may even get some of the credit.

But three seasons are lost, three seasons in which loyal fans watched the team lose again and again, while paying full N.B.A. prices. No matter how the Sixers fare in the future, those seasons will never come back.