I think there were legit positives and legit nagatives to the process.
On the plus side, they put themselves in position to obtain a load of high draft picks. Mostly due to tanking, but aided by some stellar deals that they were able to pull off. The Sacramento and Laker picks don't add all the way up to the bounty of the Pierce/Garnett trade, but Hinkie started out without a Pierce/Garnett. Relative to the price he paid, Hinkie arguably got a better return than Ainge.
I think the problem was that Hinkie didn't fully account for the collateral consequences of perrenial losing. (Maybe tanking is a drug and Hinkie got hooked?) At some point he's just waiting to hit on a few big picks and not doing much in the way of team building and player development along the way. And the return on those picks has been spotty. Okafor was a bust, Noel didn't give them much, Embiid didn't play for 2 years and played under 30 games in his 3rd year. I'm curious how a draft analyst would rate his actual value compared to expected value. While the Celtics were building their team and putting and exciting team on the court, Philly was tanking, badly enough that Hinkie eventually lost his job to a twitter troll.
Of course the Celtics had something Hinkie didn't - the Brooklyn trade - but the significnce of that gets overstated. At the end of the day the Celtics had virtually no talent (the roster Stevens had as a rookie coach was atrocious), and it wasn't until this year, Stevens' 5th, that the Brooklyn trade paid any real dividends.
I think Hinke should have pulled out of the nosedive sooner (which might have saved his job) and drafted better.
The supposed interpersonal stuff is sort of a side issue. We've seen that before, in reference to Dan Duquette (who had to wait a LONG time for his next shot) and of course BB (Cleveland edition).