Free Agency – Can Colangelo Bring FAs to Philadelphia 76ers

Aftermath

Bryan Colangelo lost a great potential ally when Sam Hinkie decided to walk.  In his time with the Raptors, Colangelo continued to display poor financial management with players in terms of free agency, and contract extensions – oftentimes paying premium dollars to attract their attention, a ploy he has already warned will be his calling card in his first off-season with the Philadelphia 76ers.  Sam  Hinkie might have helped to avoid those overpays.

While there were some good moves with Colangelo’s signings with the Raptors, particularly when he was acting to retain players on the roster, he liked to swing for the fences in his dealings.  Those “big cuts” in free agency oftentimes cost the Raptors valuable salary cap space and locked the team up for years – eventually forcing the “always move forward” Colangelo to deal the player at a deep discount the following year. His was the type of personnel management that Sam Hinkie feasted on – waiting for the team to over-commit to a player in terms of salary, and then coming in as a white knight happy to absorb the overpay for a draft pick.

Colangelo Contrasts Hinkie

Perhaps that is part of the reason why Sam Hinkie did so well in dealings with other team general managers, and why he had to be expelled from the league.  He was a facilitator, an agent of the Philadelphia 76ers who was more than happy to relieve other tactical minded NBA personnel executives of the suffocating limits of the salary cap, as long as that same team was willing to pay the cost of the service.   Colangelo is one of the tactical minds who gets caught frequently in the bad contracts and is forced to pay for an exit.

It would have been a curious discussion if the Sixers had managed to retain Hinkie.   It’s clear that his perspective is the blind spot of Bryan Colangelo’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” mantra.

If people can grow wiser with age, perhaps there is some room for hope going forward.  So far we have covered the trades of the Colangelo era, as well as the free agent signings.   In part three, we’ll discuss the drafting of Colengelo.  But the track record of his free agent signings with Toronto fail in two very important areas:

Colangelo Reacts in Free Agency – presuming success is paramount to finding success, but not in a game of odds or random chance.  Free agency is as much a game of chance as instincts.  The risks of failure in an effort to sign talent seem to be discounted to the point of paralyzing the team if the move does not work out.

There is no evidence of a fundamental plan to free agency – Free agency, much like the NFL, should be used as patches in the road.  Players who sign for more money to play for your team, will happily sign for more money elsewhere at the expiration of the contract to play.  So, it falls to reason that the team that focuses on free agents to power their roster builds will be stuck on that slippery slope.

Next: Isaiah Canaan Is Custom Made For Ben Simmons

The Philadelphia 76ers are in need of a roster upgrade, and certainly a sprinkling of strategically targeted and signed veterans are in order.  But the team cannot afford to off-load their premium blue chip prospects just because we have them, nor can they target veterans simply as a goal to “get older”.  This team needs a disciplined multi-year plan, something Bryan Colangelo did not display at Toronto.  But there is the last piece, the piece that Bryan Colangelo is least likely to lean upon, but is the strength of this Philadelphia 76ers team – the NBA Draft.  Perhaps in looking there, we will find some courage to face the upcoming weeks.