Colangelos Came To Resuscitate Philadelphia 76ers

Neither Colangelo Sought Out the Philadelphia 76ers, but both have hands in her future. But these are not guiding hands, but fists beating life back into the teams chest.

It was not a job either applied for. Nor was it a position either had sought. In fact, if the truth be known, returning to the NBA was something neither father nor son wanted to do at this stage of their lives. So how did they come here? They came due the pleadings of NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the ownership of the Philadelphia 76ers. So what was the emergency? What could possibly be so very important to cause two distinguished veterans of the NBA, who had both comfortably moved one with their lives?

The father Jerry Colangelo was comfortably entrenched as senior statesmen of Arizona, who had taken on the role of Chairman of Basketball USA – the group who recruits NBA players for the USA Olympic team, and thrived in it.

The son, Bryan Colangelo, had taken a more relaxed approach. He had settled in the Toronto, Ontario area and begun the process of converting to Canadian citizenship. He has been out of the NBA and basketball since June 2013, until his phone rang off the hook by the Philadelphia 76ers. He did toss his hat into the ring for the Brooklyn Nets general manager position, but was passed over for the position in favor of assistant general manager for the San Antonio Spurs, Sean Marks.

Their loss was our gain? Perhaps.

But there is a difference of perceptions which we need to resolve here and now: for the faithful of the Sam Hinkie “Trust the Process” group, there is no emergency. The win/loss column of the Philadelphia 76ers will right itself, just as the winter snows melt in the warmth of spring. To this faction, the team roster is chalk full of players who will grow and develop into NBA stars over time. And so, at most, the team needs to bolster the back court and call it done.

But to the other group, the group that wanted rid of Sam Hinkie – a group which includes NBA executives around the league as well as the NBA commissioner, the franchise has flat-lined. They were the group that most likely persuaded both Jerry and Bryan Colangelo to get involved in the internal workings of the Philadelphia 76ers. They do not see a roster with uncapped ceilings, but simply a band of NBA wannabe’s who were assembled by the Ebeneezer Scrooge of professional basketball, Sam Hinkie. They do not see the Sixers as a young team on the path to growing up on its own, but rather as void of veterans, like a schoolyard of children running to and fro, rather than a veteran professional basketball players ready to compete. They see the Sixers in a coma, and vital signs fading fast , and they have brought the Colangelo duo in to administer NBA CPR.

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And there is the rub. A group concluding that only a tweak here or there is needed, versus a group convinced that the entire franchise needs an immediate transfusion of veterans, locked into a cycle of losing games and drafting youth and losing even more games just to draft even more youth. To be fair, I admit that I am in the tweaking group. The belief by so many in the tweak-only group believes that the work which lies ahead of Bryan Colangelo is merely making wise decisions in the NBA draft in selecting prospects who will blend with the existing roster. To the transfusion group, the team roster will retain only a minimum of players, and will look for many to come. That concept is alien to many.

However, I acknowledge that the other group exists, and I also acknowledge that they called the ambulance to bring both Jerry Colangelo and Bryan Colangelo. The other faction is coming alive now, and speaking up. The conclusion of this group is probably closer to a course where approximately half of the roster will transplanted, either by trade or cuts, and a new crop of NBA veterans will be sutured onto the team’s roster. Of the seven to nine roster spots segregated to the young players, Dario Saric, Joel Embiid and whichever of the four draft picks used by the Philadelphia 76ers will take up a majority of those roster spots. How many players returning from the 2015-2016 squad will be retained? Unfortunately, not as many as I would like.

You see, in my mind, the team simply needs to convert two to three roster spots into a true veteran two-way point guard, and a two way wing man. Grow the rest from the young players on the roster and allow them to mature and grow. But for a team that is coming off of a 10-72 season, that may be a luxury the Philadelphia 76ers is not afforded. From the perception of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, to the consensus of all other NBA executives who did not like fighting for today’s stars while the Sixers strolled calmly towards tomorrow, there is no more tolerance for a patient approach.

We’ll know for certainty as we move into this off-season, one so very important to the team and the future. But there is no more fooling ourselves into thinking that ownership and excecutives of this team believe in the current roster. The message now hammers home that this team needs veterans, any veterans. No position, no specific skill set, just veterans. Despite retaining head coach Brett Brown, the die may have already been cast and we will learn after the fact just how many veterans and at what positions that means, just as the same hands rolled the fates of the team months ago by pre-determining that this off-season is far too dangerous for the overall NBA to allow Sam Hinkie one more turn at another NBA draft.

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Were we naive to think when the team nodded towards Bryan Colangelo that the team committed to the course as she goes? Perhaps that is true and perhaps it is not. Nobody truly knows the future. We believed what we were told in December, that the team was looking for ways to enhance the growth of players and team alike. But the team is not on a gentle slope nor in an easy turn of the road. Sam Hinkie likely did not abandon ship because he was a diva who wanted his way… but as someone who saw the sharp turn in the road and was likely not prepared for the sudden throw which sent him to write the 13 page resignation. Jerry Colangelo did not come to add the venerable wisdom of NBA experience, but to ensure that the only voice in the room is that sanctioned by the NBA.

We don’t know the future, but we must come to grips with the intended fix going forward. In the call to get the Colangelos to divert from their own lives’ interest, the team had to create an immediate emergency. If it were just baby-sitting, they never would have dropped everything.