By Nick Rummel
The Philadelphia 76ers @sixers are roaring past the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs, but the roars and unrest from the Philly fans shed light on issues much deeper than just beating a mediocre Nets team. This Sixers team is one of the youngest (and most talented) in the NBA, with many of the centerpieces such as Joel Embiid, and Ben Simmons, being recently brought on board from the NBA draft. Since their arrival to the scene, the Sixers increased from 10, to 28, to 52 wins all in the matter of 3 seasons. This season however, retaining both maturing Simmons and Embiid, as well as adding the likes of Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris, these Sixers managed to merely win 51 games and regain their spot as third in the East.
The sudden lapse of growth an improvement are to blame for the unrest from the Philly loyal. This begs the question as to what stopped the snowball roll of the Sixers team and stop their climb to the top of the east. The answer is simple: Brian Colangelo, or rather the lack thereof.
Flashback to the Summer of 2018, where the Colangelo era in Philly came to an explosive end. Despite all of his success in rebuilding a historic franchise, Colangelo was forced to resign after various social media burner accounts that degraded the team, and individual players, were connected back to Colangelo himself.
That’s it, just a couple of tweets never meant to be tied to his name were enough for the organization to forget about the man that made the franchise rebuild happen. In fact, Colangelo was reported by ESPN as being the key proponent for drafting both Embiid and Simmons, beginning the franchise total turnaround.
Now that another season has transpired, with no increase of success in spite of all conventional signs pointing towards it, it’s time for the Sixers to start evaluating whether they made a mistake with Colangelo. Franchises such as the San Antonio Spurs or Utah Jazz both attribute much of their success to their respective GM’s RC Buford and Dennis Lindsey, who similarly to Colangelo were chief talent recruiters for their respective franchises and all top class at that. NBA General Managers are also heavily involved with players relations, something that has arisen as a a major issue in the Sixers organization as internal locker room issues and player disputes have lingered throughout the regular season and playoffs. Prior to Colangelo’s exit, the Sixers simply played solid basketball night in night out, and were free of petty conflicts (at least in the public eye.)
All this being said, the Philly fans have a reason to boo. They expected to be atop the East, because they have all of the talent (and more) to do so, thanks to Colangelo. The winning though hasn’t followed, so the boos ensue and it’s time to consider the idea that ditching Colangelo cut a little deeper than the franchise had expected.
Comment below if you think firing Colangelo was a mistake, or not, and what direction you think this Sixers team is heading!
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