Chasing a Shadow On a Cloudy Day
While with the Raptors, Colangelo appeared to be chasing after other more successful teams in the NBA. In his first year, he was very successful, but just that first year. Following that, other teams adapted his easily replicated tactics to their own off-season methods. During the era when NBA teams were stacking their rosters with big-name free agents, Colangelo was trying to fight a battle to sign big agents to a small market franchise.
He gave the appearance of someone trying to short-cut the road to the top, while other teams either had more money to toss at free agents, or had more success in growing talented players on their rosters and then used that core to attract a big name or two. The year Bosh jumped from the Raptors to the Heat, LeBron James joined the Miami Heat as well, and two years later Miami won the NBA title. But the Miami Heat was merely following the blueprint set by other teams, like the Boston Celtics, whose overload of NBA talent in 2007 helped to speed up the Raptors’ decline. In Toronto, Bryan Colangelo only knew one speed, a fast-paced tactical method of signing names to leap other teams.
Risks Being Outbid and Outdid
But the NBA is a copycat league, and as soon as teams observed the success Colangelo had in 2006 loading up the Toronto Raptor Roster, they simply outbid and outdid him in subsequent years. And that is the risk in whatever strategy he employs with the Philadelphia 76ers. If he is successful, unless the Sixers have a huge lead on the rest of the NBA, they will quickly find themselves in competition with far more successful teams for limited resources. That can come back to hurt the team.
Similar tactics were employed by the Phildelphia 76ers in the time of head coach Doug Collins and general manager Tony DiLeo. They were the duo who lived in the moment, seeing the draft as an easy-bake oven which took far too much patience and time to churn out contributors for a playoff chasing NBA team like the Philadelphia 76ers.
After losing Game 7 to Boston in the hotly contested 2012 Eastern Conference semifinals, Philadelphia shook up the roster and made the bold move to acquire the double-double threat from Los Angeles in a four-team trade that cost them Olympian Andre Iguodala, rising star Nik Vucevic and draft picks.
Chase Dreams Catch Nightmares
They chased star center Andrew Bynum, and Andrew Bynum never played a game for the Sixers due to significant leg injuries.
Philadelphia also traded for Miami Heat Arnette Moultrie, giving up a protected first round pick as well as a 45th pick for the offensive rebounder. In combination with the Bynum trade, the two deals were the final nails in the coffins for the Sixers. Bynum never played for the Sixers, while Moultrie was traded away two years later to the New York Knicks.
In the end, Sixers’ ownership determined that chasing NBA championships are like chasing a shadow on a cloudy day. You can almost make it out, but by the time you arrive you find out it was never there at all. And so, the team turned to the Sam Hinkie ERA.
Next: I have met the enemy, and he is me