Jerry Colangelo Came to Philadelphia 76ers With an Agenda

Jerry Colangelo came to the Philadelphia 76ers in December with a clear agenda: Get his son a job.

Jerry Colangelo was announced as Chairman of Basketball Operations of the Philadelphia 76ers organization in December, a position that seemed to be a made up one to get Colangelo’s expertise in the building, and give general manager Sam Hinkie a reason to call him if he needed some advice. Cool, the Sixers get to add Hinkie’s expertise to Colangelo’s, no one is really going to complain about that!

Now, though, with recent developments in the Sixers organization, the motives for Colangelo agreeing to come onto the team are becoming more and more clear.

For anyone who somehow has missed the news over the last few days, here it is:

• Sam Hinkie stepped down from his position as general manager.
• Philadelphia 76ers reportedly looked into “70 different candidates” for the vacant general manager position within just a few days.
• Sixers decided to hire Bryan Colangelo as the next general manager of the team, Jerry’s son.
• Jerry stepped down from his position as Chairman of Basketball Operations

The most recent development came on Sunday afternoon with a press conference held by the team’s majority owner, Josh Harris. Harris finally made it official, hiring Bryan to the position, and on top of that the team announced that Jerry would be leaving his current “made up” role with the team and be proceeding as just a special advisor.

So, what in the world was the point of hiring Jerry Colangelo to this position in the first place? He left after just about four months on the job. The Sixers may not have meant to fall subject to his agenda, but it is being clearly shown that Jerry had a plan when he accepted the position with the Sixers. That agenda had an ultimate goal of his son getting a general managing job.

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The first step was getting Hinkie to either take a smaller role with the Sixers or to leave the team, thus opening the general manager position. Hinkie finally did that on April 6th.

All along, Colangelo was probably telling ownership that the best move was to hire his son and move Hinkie to a smaller role. “Director of analytics” was a job title that Hinkie was offered instead of being general manager. Colangelo probably made an even bigger push for the team to hire his son once Bryan was clearly no longer in the running for the managing position open with the Brooklyn Nets.

What makes the plan by Jerry incredibly clear is that he stepped down from his position with the Sixers on the same day that his son was hired. Colangelo didn’t even wait a season, a month, or even a week. Heck, he didn’t even wait one day! Jerry stepped down because his time with the team was done, his goal was completed. He got his son a job, and that was the end of his time with the Sixers.

Really, we should have seen this coming. Colangelo didn’t ever relocate to Philly or near Philly, he “ran the team” from his home in Arizona. He made no indications that he wanted to be with the team long-term, and for goodness sakes, the man is 76 years old. Him taking on even a fraction of the same job that caused Sam Hinkie, a healthy, younger executive, to lose 20 pounds, would be impossible.

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Colangelo’s plan was and is clear: Nepotism. “Give my kid a job,” he practically screamed to the ownership group. And that they did. They fell right into his plan.