Where Are Bryan Colangelo’s Former Trading Partners?

By Bret Stuter | Jun 27, 2016

Jun 24, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo during an introduction press conference at the Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

With the return of Bryan Colangelo to the NBA as President of Basketball Operations of the Philadelphia 76ers, he also brings his trading history

I am the sum of my experiences.

While this is true of any person, this is a key element of the Philadelphia 76ers going forward. You see, the team is seeking to improve it’s roster by the signing of free agents, or the transactions of players on the Philadelphia 76ers players to other teams in exchange for their more veteran and experienced players.

But neither path seems to be meeting with much success so far.

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Bryan Colangelo was no stranger to the NBA trade circles in his former role as GM of the Toronto Raptors. We’ve looked at his past trades in part one of our three part series analyzing his effectiveness in Canada, now it’s time to crack open the vault and see who he traded with, and if that may give us any indication of potential trading partners in this year’s free agency.

Keep in mind that Colangelo’s last “gig” was at the Toronto Raptors, where he remade two thirds of the roster in his first off-season. While the Philadelphia 76ers did not show up often on the basketball court last season, it was not a lack of talent as it was a lack of maturity and cohesion. That cohesion has already been improved dramatically with the 2016 NBA drafting of Ben Simmons, Timothe Luwawu, and Furkan Korkmaz.

So now the path before the team enters an area where the Philadelphia 76ers had hoped to find with relative ease, is more difficult to locate than first imagined. That is not a bad thing to most Philadelphia 76ers fans. Hastily rushing to the trade counter with a fistful of NBA draft picks and young talent in the hopes of finding a bargain never turns out well in the modern NBA, nor does the rush to sign free agency just because the team has a fat wallet.

But free agency requires a convincing of sorts that the team will find success, a chance at post season and perhaps even a championship appearance. That is a difficult sell for a team emerging from a 10-72 season.

The other path is to engage another team to trade. But that has it’s own perils. Each team entering a trade does so in the belief that their team emerges with the greater value. In the NBA, that means that you must trust, to some extent, your trade partner. In the past, that has meant the Houston Rockets, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Miami Heat, the Indiana Pacers and the Utah Jazz, for the younger Colangelo.

As we prepare to enter free agency, and the new NBA season on July 7th, there will be the obvious considerations of the Toronto Raptors as well as the Phoenix Suns as possible partners in any trade. But those were team once managed, overseen, by Bryan Colangelo. The true trade relationships were built elsewhere.

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Those teams: the Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, and Utah Jazz; have all stepped up to Bryan Colangelo in the past, shaken his hand, and dealt. That path, now familiar to the man just returned to the NBA, will be the first paths he walks for the Philadelphia 76ers.