The Sixers have a roster that looks like an elite D-League team, they had several top draft picks the last few years and seem to pick a big man every year in a league that is more and more oriented towards small ball. To make it worse, one of those big men, Joel Embiid didn’t play a minute yet and is missing his second season.
You certainly can’t blame the Sixers for Embiid’s injury but the Philadelphia franchise hasn’t done anything to show they want to put a competitive team on the floor. Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban recently said that they have no idea what they are doing but that was until today when the Sixers named Jerry Colangelo as their new chairman of basketball operations.
This move gives them automatically some credit, Jerry Colangelo has a successful track record with the Phoenix Suns and recently as a director of USA basketball. Colangelo knows how to put a team together, he has a lot of experience doing it, he was the youngest general manager in sports in 1968 so he’s been doing it for a while and more importantly he is respected around the league.
The Sixers need a break and signing a big name free agent should be one of their priorities and if Colangelo is calling, it might not guarantee a signature but at least you are listening which is already a big step in the right direction.
The Sixers confirmed that they want to keep Brett Brown and I think it’s a good thing, Brown comes from Popovich’s school, he is a good coach but unfortunately was never given a chance to coach a talented team. He has to be the happiest to see Colangelo at the helm now.
It will be interesting to see how the Sixers go through their transformation but there is no doubt that for a franchise which has made some bad decisions in recent years, this hire is very encouraging.