How Will Bryan Colangelo Handle the “Two Player Draft”?

The 2016 NBA draft is, in Bryan Colangelo’s words, the “top two players and everyone else”. Can the Colangelo Sixers thwart the Hinkie curse of drafting at three?

The NBA lottery holds the fate of many NBA franchises for ransom. The cliff of extremely talented to very talented happens very early in the NBA annual draft. Sometimes it’s one player, and sometimes it’s two. Occasionally, there is a third player who falls due to injury or character concerns. But no NBA draft is an unlimited supply of unlimited talent.

In fact, the difference is so extreme between the top draft pick and the fifth draft pick that the NBA had to take extreme measures to discourage teams from outright tanking to earn the top pick. They system the NBA league placed into effect limits the chances of the worst team in the NBA to a one out of four chance of earning the best from the NCAA or internationally available prospects.

This year, two factors have softened the limits of the NBA draft. In this draft, there are two names coveted by NBA general managers around the league: Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram. If the Philadelphia 76ers end up with either player, the team will be quite satisfied with the overall draft results. Helping to nudge the likelihood of that occurring is the right to swap picks with that of the Sacramento Kings.

Josh Wilson has just written a wonderful piece which go through the various odds of each scenario. But the alarm sounds if we do not end up with the one or two pick in the draft. Why?

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In the scope of Bryan Colangelo’s hiring, he’s arrived to fix a 10-72 team. “Fix” in terms of doubling or tripling the win count. The path he has elected to do so is already known, he’s come to bring veterans to the roster. If the team ends up with either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram, there is enough hope in their talent to develop into a centerpiece that he would be obliged to keep the core of the roster young and build around them. Dario Saric, Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Robert Covington, Nik Stauskas, T.J. McConnell, and even Richaun Holmes have a good chance of remaining on the roster.

But if the team has no such luck and fails to land one of the top two picks, what does the new President do then? The goal of fixing the team has not changed, merely the need to add talent to the lineup has increased.

We’ve been addressing what comes next. Bryan Colangelo did not arrive to baby-sit the team, but to restore it to NBA competitiveness. In that, he can be the man who makes hard choices.

When he was in a similar position in Toronto, he had the opportunity to attempt to build a team around Chris Bosh, the same Chris Bosh who was unhappy on the Toronto Raptors team. In that face off, Colangelo took his concerns to public media this way:

"“Despite limited swelling and any excessive damage on an MRI, he (Chris Bosh) felt like he needed to sit for six more games … I’m not even questioning Chris’ injury. I’m telling you he was cleared to play subject to tolerance on his part, and the tolerance just apparently wasn’t there and he chose not to play,” Colangelo said. “The fact that our season was spiralling downward and we were hoping he’d come back sooner and we were also dealing with a few other things at that point … we were really struggling there. Whether he was mentally checked out or just wasn’t quite into it down the stretch, he wasn’t the same guy. I think everybody saw that, but no one wanted to acknowledge it. At the same time, I never felt we were quite in the game (in terms of signing Bosh to a new contract). There was too much out there, too much built up for him to take an easy out here, and he decided to do that. We tried in vain to put pieces around Chris. Different pieces, different styles. It didn’t work out. No matter what type of player we brought in, it didn’t seem to have the right mix with him as that centerpiece.” – Bryan Colangelo discussing concerns over Chris Bosh"

Contrast that with the style in Philly, where persistent soreness in Jahlil Okafor’s knee eventually led to the discovery of a meniscus tear, or the fact that Joel Embiid has been a key focus of the team’s rehab for two long seasons- two season where his appearance might have save the career of Sam Hinkie, and you begin to see the concern.

Next: If Brett Brown is Out, Randy Wittman Should be Considered

Does Colangelo see any player on the Sixers team as a centerpiece yet? If he does, he hasn’t hinted as such. Does Bryan Colangelo have a way of making players feel respected and wanted? Yes, he does. He has relationships with players that carry on to this day. He was congratulated by several former players, players he had brought into the NBA. He is a “player’s executive” some have told me, but that is not a universal claim. Some player relationships never developed with the younger Colangelo. Some relationships never will.

Hence, the story that unfolded in the drama surrounding Chris Bosh didn’t reinforce that narrative:

"I play this game as hard as I can every time I step on the court,” Bosh said. “On the back of my jersey it says ‘Bosh’ … The Boshes are hard workers. We have a lot of pride in what we do, in our jobs and in life.”"

And the past experiences of a “basketball guy” become part of the decision making process going forward. Colangelo is sorting through the roster with head coach Brett Brown now, working on who the team builds around and who it trades away for compatible pieces. Despite the star quality of players, Colangelo will not redo another Chris Bosh on the Sixers. So we wait. We await the results of the NBA lottery on May 17. If we get a top two pick, we will build around one of two very special players coming out of that draft.

If we don’t? All bets are off. Lady luck, we need you to smile on Philadelphia.