Where Can Bryan Colangelo Out-Do Sam Hinkie?

Sam Hinkie was a loved general manager by truly dedicated Philadelphia 76ers fans, but he wasn’t perfect. Can Bryan Colangelo improve in some areas that he fell short in?

Earlier this month, former Philadelphia 76ers president and general manager Sam Hinkie stepped down from his position. We later found out that Hinkie was likely to be demoted to a lower position and replaced in his former position by another person — likely Bryan Colangelo.

With the news of this, Hinkie decided his talents were too valuable to be wasted as “director of analytics” which was to be his new position. This made it easy for the Sixers to go ahead and hire Bryan to their executive team.

Bryan Colangelo, although not having ever led a team to a championship, has learned under his father, who has started a lot of sport organizations from the ground up, specifically in the Phoenix area.

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Some fans are already feeling like they don’t want him around simply because he replaced their beloved Hinkie, and because he hasn’t shown much promise with the other teams he worked for. But maybe we can find that he is able to outdo Sam Hinkie in some areas that Hinkie failed in.

Hinkie — although a smart man and a decent general manager — wasn’t perfect. Among his shortcomings was an inability to communicate on a regular basis with the media, a secretive approach to Joel Embiid‘s injury, and an approach to Embiid’s injury that might have been too cautious in the final leg during his tenure.

An unconventional way of rebuilding led to Hinkie being somewhat secretive and quiet around the media. He would typically only talk to the media when a big deal occurred, and then at the beginning and end of each season. There were usually a few sprinkled media sessions at practices that Hinkie would attend at practices, but it was anything but regular.

When you’re rebuilding a team by designed losing, you don’t want to come right out and say that to the media. It looks bad. For that reason, Hinkie kept to himself a bit more than the media would have liked. Still, Hinkie was a smart man. He wrote a very eloquent 13-page letter for his grand departure from the Sixers. If he was asked a question such as, “why are the Sixers losing so much?” he could have answered it well. He would have talked about having the longest sight in the room. I still don’t understand why he didn’t talk to the media much at all. He had a lot to say.

Hinkie avoided talking about a situation in which Joel Embiid re-injured his foot to the point that he needed surgery seemingly to the last minute possible. He didn’t inform the media of exactly what was going on, and it caused a lot of confusion and negative speculation.

Additionally, when Hinkie did talk to the media, he often said the wrong things. Early in 2016, Hinkie let the media know that it was unlikely that Embiid would appear in Summer League, despite the team reporting all season that he was making constant progress with his rehabilitation.

I understand being cautious with a player who has shown a tendency to pile up injury after injury, but saying a player won’t appear in Summer League in the winter months is absurd, especially if they are “making progress” with their inhibiting injury. Hinkie should have never ruled Embiid out for Summer League play as early as he did.

So, what can Bryan do better? Well, we know that Hinkie had poor relationships with other GMs and player agents around the league. Colangelo appears to already have a leg-up there, which is good.

What I will be looking to see him do better is have strong relationships with the media. He needs to let the media and fans know what’s going on more often than Hinkie did, and not appear to be secretive about operations that are going on with the team’s building.

Additionally, I’d like to see him be a bit more liberal with Embiid’s injury. As we enter another offseason, I hope to see the team gauge his progress more often and even talk about the possibility of him appearing in a few Summer League games if he is ready.

By no means should they play him if he’s not ready for game-situation basketball, but if he is supposedly on track to get there by the summer, why wouldn’t they? The team is going to have to jump out of the over-cautious mindset they have had regarding Embiid at some point.

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If Bryan can come in and improve in these areas that Hinkie failed in, not only will he be on track to be a good general manager, but he may win the hearts of some fans that are not too pleased with him taking Hinkie’s place. Additionally, good relationships with the media never hurt.

I hope to see Bryan pick up the broken pieces as well as build on what he’s acquired in coming onto this team.