It’s time for the Sixers to move on and find a new slant

The past few days have been like a train wreck for the Sixers: it’s been a disaster and no one can look away.

Ever since Ben Detrick from The Ringer dropped that fire article about Bryan Colangelo and his alleged five burner twitter accounts everyone in the greater Philadelphia area has a theory on the matter. They’re all pretty much the same – not many people are giving Bryan the benefit of the doubt at all.

This is generally the part where I would have the back of my team’s general manager, where I would tell you that he’s innocent until proven guilty, where I would say there’s no way that someone in his position would be stupid enough to do something like that. Especially when he is adamantly denying any and all allegations…

Bryan Colangelo is back in Philly.
I spoke with him at Philly airport.

He told me he stands by his Ringer statement and is “fully unaware of anything” related to the messages.

I asked him if he had any knowledge any of those tweets were being sent

He told me “zero” pic.twitter.com/2AUtCZYhHR

— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) May 31, 2018

Here’s the thing… I’m not gonna do that. Deep down in my heart I believe that Colangelo had something to do with those burner accounts. No one besides Colangelo or somebody close to him would have the information that was tweeted out. Whether it was physically him or not is still unknown, but the evidence against him is almost insurmountable. I don’t want to regurgitate The Ringer article, just know that it doesn’t look good for the basketball lifer.

If I’m being honest, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the Sixers to make a decision on him. If I were making the decision he would be gone. This entire situation is godawful for the Sixers organization, an organization that just had it’s best season in over 15 years is just as quickly the laughing stock of the NBA again. Even if Colangelo is innocent he is losing trust all around the NBA.

Had another NBA player tell me that he doesn’t think there’s any way Colangelo survives this. “I wouldn’t want him to be my GM.”

— Sarah Todd (@NBASarah) May 31, 2018

NBA players are telling me that even if nothing is 100% proven and we only had original report evidence to go off of, they would not trust Colangelo moving forward.

— Sarah Todd (@NBASarah) May 31, 2018

To clarify, I asked multiple players if it turned out to be Colangelo, his wife, or anyone close to him, would you trust him. The answer was no.

— Sarah Todd (@NBASarah) May 31, 2018

If I’m the Sixers, I have no problem firing Colangelo over this. Call it a quick decision, call it what you will, the man is officially a problem to the organization. Truth be told, I was never a fan of the hire to begin with. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Sam Hinkie at the time either (I am now because the man is a straight up folk hero) I was just really unimpressed with Colangelo’s resume. For somebody who held front office jobs in the NBA since the 90s, I felt like he left a lot to be desired. Most of what he had was given to him by his father, Jerry, and it showed. He didn’t deserve the job on the Sixers, Adam Silver forced a marriage between Jerry and the Sixers because the NBA hated that the Sixers “rigged the system”. Because of that, Bryan was rewarded with the front office job because nepotism. For someone with over 25 years of front office experience and the pedigree of his last name, you’d think he had more than one “Executive of the Year” award to show for it.

I’ve always been of the school of thought that if you want to see somebody fired, you better have a damn good replacement in mind. As someone who doesn’t know too much about the rest of the NBA, I don’t have a specific name in mind but I have a strategy and a name that I would avoid at all costs.

First, I would avoid David Griffin at all costs. Your eyes do not deceive you, I do not want the Sixers to bring Griffin on board. Exhibit A: He picked Anthony Bennett first overall back in 2013. If you had to quick Google who that is I don’t blame you at all. The 2013 draft wasn’t great to begin with, but Victor Oladipo went second overall and that seems like an easy pick to make in hindsight. The only thing worse, in my opinion, than keeping Colangelo around would be bringing on Griffin. The only good thing that could come out of it is his obvious connection to LeBron James, so take that for what it’s worth.

If I were searching for a new general manager, my strategy would be to cherry pick somebody in the front office of a successful team like the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, or Houston Rockets. The best thing I can do is compare the situation to the Eagles, I would find a successful team’s equivalent of Joe Douglas and offer them the job that Colangelo has. It might be easier said than done but that’s my ideal situation.

At the end of the day, Colangelo has to go. There is no bouncing back from this controversy. With the NBA draft coming up soon, the Sixers need to take a page out of the Woodergate book: move on, find a new slant.

You can follow Anthony Mazziotti on Twitter (@AntMazziotti) and e-mail him at [email protected].

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