Seth Vigdor
The difference between the Sixers organization pre-Jerry Colangelo and now with him has been night and day. Sometimes all a team or business needs is a little organizational shake up to get things going in the right direction. Now that it’s clear that Jerry Colangelo is the man in charge with power, the next question has to be: what’s next for the Sixers?
At the All-Star break the Sixers are 8-45, which as awful as that sounds is a whole hell of a lot better than when Sam Hinkie was running things around town. Keith Pompey is reporting that the Sixers are considering a shake up to their front office by adding more “basketball minds” to the group. What a concept, huh?
#Sixers are considering shaking up their front office by adding more basketball minds to the group. https://t.co/ycZgGtlJ49
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) February 13, 2016
Here’s what Jerry Colangelo had to say about the situation courtesy Pompey on Philly.com.
“I think that any time you have an opportunity to enhance your organization and you bring people in to accomplish that, you need to consider it big time. You really do. I think in our case we have a very bright young man in Sam Hinkie, who holds the title of president and GM. In his space he’s really strong. One could build a case for saying you’d like to have more people added who have experience in other aspects of those job. That’s the kind of conversation’s that going on.”
I don’t think that what Colangelo is saying is earth shattering, but the fact that more and more organizations in all the major sports are getting away from having actual sports knowledgeable minds in their front office is mind boggling to me. You hear more and more about “sports science guys” which is all fine and dandy, but you need to have guys in there that have played, coached or have the knack to know what the heck a sport is all about to be truly successful.
Colangelo continued:
“No, I’m not being specific. I’m just saying adding someone, people to the front office. Maybe it’s not a person. And that’s not demeaning who we have. That’s just saying you got to be strong. So I like to hear people say ‘They got the strongest front office in the league. That’s a goal. That’s an objective. So it’s going to require more people to make that happen.”
After seeing what the Eagles’ front office has been all about over the years, Colangelo’s words are refreshing to hear. Perhaps the Sixers aren’t as far off to being a decent team as one may think. I’m all about the Colangelo era in Philly and I’m dying to see a winning basketball team in Philly again.