Philadelphia 76ers Hire Bryan Colangelo And His Spotty Track Record

After letting Sam Hinkie walk, the Philadelphia 76ers hired Bryan Colangelo to fill in at the general manager position, but what are the Sixers getting in their next GM?

After Sam Hinkie’s resignation, the Philadelphia 76ers only took a few hours to fill their general manager vacancy. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, the Philadelphia 76ers are hiring Bryan Colangelo to assume the role as general manager of the franchise, operating under his father and current Sixers Chairman of Basketball Operations, Jerry Colangelo.

The first issue with this is that as progressive as the Sixers were in the Hinkie era, this move is the exact opposite of that. There were several young, progressive front office minds that the Sixers could’ve targeted — Mike Zarren of Boston, Troy Weaver of Oklahoma City, even going back to the Houston well and attempting to entice Gersson Rosas to assume the position. But going right to Colangelo seemed very shortsighted from my vantage point.

Philadelphia’s second issue is that Colangelo is an awful general manager. The Raptors had their most successful season in Colangelo’s first season, the 2006-07 season, winning 47 games. They would make the playoffs the following season, but fail for the rest of his tenure. After losing franchise cornerstone Chris Bosh, the Raptors won just 79 games in his final three seasons.

He was also below average in picking a head coach. Sam Mitchell, despite two seasons in which Toronto making the playoffs, was a below average coach and Jay Triano, his replacement, was even worse.

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To be fair, we have to talk about some of the hits Colangelo made. He drafted DeMar DeRozan, Ed Davis, Jonas Valanciunas, Terrence Ross and traded for Kyle Lowry — four of the five are vital members of Toronto’s team right now. If there’s anything to be hopeful for, it’s that this tenure is more like his run with the Phoenix Suns, where he signed Steve Nash, drafted Amar’e Stoudemire, traded for Joe Johnson and essentially built that team into the historically revered juggernaut it was.

There were some even larger doozies, however, highlighted by drafting Andrea Bargnani and then paying him $50 million in an extension; signing Landry Fields to a $20 million deal to stop the Knicks from signing Steve Nash; trading for Rudy Gay; and trading the draft rights of Roy Hibbert for Jermaine O’Neal. Oh, and he gave Hedo Turkoglu a godly amount of money ($53 million) and Jason Kapono $24 million.

That’s not to totally diminish Colangelo’s resume, but the change from what the Sixers once did to what they did tonight in hiring Colangelo was a bit alarming. After three seasons — feels like forever, but just three seasons — of this tank, the Sixers seem to be moving towards pursuing wins this upcoming offseason. I think it’s fair to say that there were options out there could both continue the process while turning the direction towards winning basketball games.

While the Sixers stand at 10 wins, the team was going to flip eventually, even as soon as this upcoming season. Dario Saric is on the verge of coming over to join the Sixers this season, giving them another deadly playmaker at the 4. Joel Embiid seems to be on the right path of returning from injury, Philly has a chance to acquire the Lakers’ 2016 first round pick and hey, free agency fits their team, as several young wings will be on the market.

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A part of Hinkie’s design was to build a team that wasn’t just another team in Philadelphia, but a team that could contend for championships for several years. That was the goal. He brought in several players from the draft to help that effort, cleared the books, allowing the Sixers to become prominent players in free agency while having star players in place on the roster under rookie deals or extensions after rookie deals.

Now, it’s up to Colangelo to build a contender.