Seth Vigdor
Sixers fans aren’t the only ones skeptical of Jerry Colangelo. According to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of the Vertical and Yahoo! Sports, “because rival teams protested about the potential for conflicts and player tampering after Jerry Colangelo partnered his duties as chairman of the Philadelphia 76ers and managing director of USA Basketball, the NBA restricted Colangelo’s reach in an apparent attempt to limit his access and influence over star players.”
Apparently, they’ve been watching some of Colangelo’s latest work in Philadelphia. But they sure had no problem having him smoke out Sam Hinkie. The other teams probably didn’t want the Sixers to become a dynasty because that would be bad news for them, but, ah, corruption. Gotta love it.
The chief concern among the executives of rival teams is that Colangelo could leverage his year-round communication with some of the athletes and use it to persuade the players to join the Sixers via free-agency. More from Woj’s report:
The specific guidelines that apply to Colangelo: While he still is part of the group that selects the Team USA roster and Olympic player pool, he is no longer allowed to vote for the final national team and Olympic rosters as a member of the USA Basketball board of directors, and he must make opposing general managers aware of any contact with their players or their players’ agents, league sources told The Vertical.”
After the hiring of his son, Bryan officially on Sunday, Colangelo relinquished his title of chairman of basketball operations for the 76ers. He will keep a title of special adviser to Philadelphia ownership.
If you missed the introduction of Jerry’s son Bryan as the Sixers’ new general manager, I suggest you get caught up here with all that went down at that press conference. Among the foolishness that was stated at the press conference was Joshua Harris stating that Jerry Colangelo “wasn’t involved in the hiring of Bryan.”
Nonsense like that can only add fuel to the fire when it comes to league rivals being suspicious of Colangelo.