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Smallwood: A raised eyebrow about Colangelo's early commitment to winning

    by John Smallwood
    Published 
If I were going to be consistent about this, I suppose I should give Sixers president of basketball operations/general manager Bryan Colangelo the same season and half I gave former Sixers president of basketball operations/general manager Sam Hinkie before turning a skeptical eye on what he was doing to build a credible NBA team.
The situations, however, are a little different.
While Hinkie was not as transparent about his plan to intentionally field some of the worst rosters in NBA history, to intentionally lose games in an effort to game the NBA’s lottery system, he did state from the beginning this was a rebuilding project. He refused to hint at what improvement would look like and when it might actually begin to happen.
When Colangelo was formally introduced as Hinkie’s replacement in April, he knew he was taking over a franchise that was coming off a 10-72 season and was 47-199 in the previous three, yet he still said, “I really want to make sure that everyone understands this is a transition from this measured rebuilding process to sustainable winning.”
The Sixers' 0-2 start, which included a hot-mess, 32-point loss to a solid but not elite Atlanta Hawks squad, has me with a raised eyebrow already about that commitment.
Of course, it is ridiculously early to make an evaluation but other than selecting Ben Simmons, the near consensus No. 1 overall pick, with the No. 1 overall pick that dropped into his lap, what has Colangelo done that supports a transition to “sustainable winning?”
With Simmons injured, the best thing about the Sixers has been the start of twice red-shirt center Joel Embiid – whom Colangelo inherited from the Hinkie era.
He also was grandfathered Jahlil Okafor, Dario Saric, Richaun Holmes, Nerlens Noel, Nik Stauskas, Robert Covington, Hollis Thompson, Jerami Grant and T.J. McConnell.
With the exception of Simmons, Colangelo has yet to upgrade this roster through his own manipulations.
He did not find a way to trade back up into the draft to select another high-potential rookie and the other two first-round picks he made, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Furkan Korkmaz, are long-term projects in the Hinkie mindset.
While Colangelo’s free-agent signees – Gerald Henderson, Jerryd Bayless and Sergio Rodridguez – are better than any Hinkie signed, that’s not saying much. All three are still no better than proven NBA backups for teams that are just halfway decent.
I guess what has me on edge is, I look at this roster as a whole and see much of the same. The flaws in the previous rosters are still here.
The things that would help in the development of young big men like Embiid, Okafor, Noel and Holmes, are still glaringly unaddressed.
Colangelo knows the gaping wounds the Sixers have but thus far he’s only applied Band-Aids.
Is anyone interested in seeing Embiid’s early progress slowed because a flawed roster can’t help him properly develop?
Not me, I saw it enough with Noel and Okafor. Still, right now, this is the same inadequate crew with some minor upgrades.
It’s not necessarily about wins, although some would be nice. It’s about what a roster like this does to help cripple the future.
What you do in the present plays a role in setting that up.
The answer cannot be just to wait until Simmons gets healthy enough. He’s likely to be as hampered by this collection as Okafor and Noel were in their first two seasons.
Colangelo has been around this league long enough to know that it does not serve the present or the future if his potential young stars can’t develop properly because of a flawed roster.
They need to be nurtured from the beginning.
Hinkie was fine with being bad because it was the key to his long-range goal. Colangelo, however, said the Sixers were beyond that and now committed to moving to the next phase.
It’s way early to come to a conclusion, but so far it looks like Colangelo needs to be more aggressive in moving “toward sustainable winning.”
    JS
    John Smallwood
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