When asked about the Hawks' losing streak, he said there were a number of factors why a team would go from being successful to having such a streak - including management, team culture and budget.
Getting the chemistry of a team right was integral to its success - however with changes in players, and coaches, this was hard to achieve.
"It's hard to have that chemistry right off the bat," he said. "The coaches have had a fair swing at it in terms of having players get there early to prepare.
"That's a challenge with all teams, not just the Hawks, trying to get the key pieces together to have enough momentum or chemistry so when the season starts you can fire away."
Getting the team culture right, and having players on the same page helped, he said.
"If they're united on court and in the community that's a real success. We were the best in the country, we never won a championship but in terms of what we did in the community and making the playoffs, and making the finals."
To ensure success on the court "leadership is huge".
Mr Winitana said he had been fortunate to be part of the Hawks' leadership group for the past 15 years of his career - including in 2015 when he filled the role of team coach at the same time as being a player, and co-captain.
He said the catalyst for success was ensuring leadership had "their finger on the pulse all the time, making sure the ship is sailing in the right direction".
"You get the right leaders very little can go wrong, if you haven't got that direction from the top to the players it can be very hard to get right. I think the last few years [have been] about getting that culture right from the top to the bottom."
Finally, budgets and sponsorship played a large role in teams' success on the court - with top teams often having the biggest budgets.
Without a big budget, "you're going to come up short all the time", he said.
However, Mr Winitana said there were teams who were not in it for the championship, but played to be competitive, and be in the league "so they can do other things off the courts to make a bigger difference to the community" .
"I think that's where the Hawks are right now, they want to be competitive ... but they're building towards something greater than just winning games this year.
"That's what the Hawks have always been about."
He was optimistic the team was "on the right track this year", and said it would be good to see what the new players brought to the team.