Philadelphia 76ers face sticky situation with Bryan Colangelo

Philadelphia 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo is facing a lot of heat after a report of him operating multiple twitter accounts surfaced last night.

Late on Tuesday, The Ringer released an extensive report that went into detail on a potential social media scheme possibly being run by current Philadelphia 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo. You can read the entire report here.

While there’s no good way to defend the questionable acts that Colangelo may have committed from trashing players to releasing medical information the public was unaware of, the timing of Brett Brown‘s three-year contract extension was also ironic. Is there a chance that could have been planned? Maybe. But also, there is a strong chance that this is simply irony, and doesn’t change whether it was intentional or not.

On a night where Philadelphia and their fans should have been celebrating Brown’s new contract, all attention quickly turned to this disturbing report on the team’s general manager. The guy who gave Brown the extension is now under fire for his possible use of social media, as the news surrounding the new contract quickly fell out of people’s thoughts.

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In short, the story by The Ringer went into detail on five Twitter accounts that all traced back to being potentially tied to Colangelo. The accounts were used to do the following:

• Share disclosed information, such as potential trades and Jahlil Okafor`s medical situation.
• Bash former 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie, Colangelo’s predecessor, and also current Toronto Raptors President of Basketball Operations Masai Uriji, who replaced Colangelo as the general manager in Toronto after he was relieved of his duties.
• Attack current 76ers such as Joel Embiid and Markelle Fultz while disclosing information about their injuries that the general public may not have known A
• Attacking former Sixer Nerlens Noel on his desire not to be here prior to his trade to the Dallas Mavericks in February 2017.
• Defend and praise Colangelo while firing back at other accounts that bashed the current Sixers general manager
• Lastly, these accounts would on a regular basis pressure Sixers beat reporters into asking questions about information that only Sixers management would know, such as a rumored failed physical by Okafor that voided a potential trade in February 2017. Or the Sixers letting Embiid play in a nationally televised game against the Houston Rockets in January 2017 with a torn meniscus.

When taking all of these things into account, it becomes clear why there is a high likelihood of these accounts being run by Colangelo. What made it even more intriguing, is that the report took a deep dive into who the accounts were following, and all five were following very similar accounts such as:

• Current and former Sixers players
• Sixers coaches and front office executives
• Sixers beat writers
• Players on the University of Chicago men’s basketball team, the same team in which Colangelo’s son plays for
• Players from the high school team that Colangelo’s son played for

The report even took a look at the accounts being followed by the potential Colangelo “burner” accounts that were not basketball related, and all of the people they found had a tie to Colangelo in one way or another.

The last time a story like this surfaced was last season when it was discovered that Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant used burner accounts to try and defend his name on Twitter. With a player, it is not as big of a deal, but with an executive, it can get a bit fishy, especially when they are sharing some confidential information.

All of the evidence presented by The Ringer article points to these five accounts being run by Colangelo. When The Ringer asked the Sixers about these five accounts, they responded by saying that Colangelo indeed ran one of them, but had no connection to the other four. However, all the other accounts, including the now famed “Eric Jr.” account, may have been run by Colangelo.

With all of these signs pointing to Colangelo operating these burner accounts, an investigation obviously has to be done about this, and the Sixers released the following statement late on Tuesday:

As much as many can assume these accounts be linked to Colangelo, we can not write him up as guilty just yet. There will be an investigation into this and once the results are found, we can then be sure of whether or not Colangelo was in fact behind this.

When asked about this situation, the Colangelo released the following statement, courtesy of Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports:

"“Like many of my colleagues in sports, I have used social media as a means to keep up with the news. While I have never posted anything whatsoever on social media, I have used the @Phila1234567 Twitter account referenced in this story to monitor our industry and other current events. This storyline is disturbing to me on many levels, as I am not familiar with any of the other accounts that have been brought to my attention, nor do I know who is behind them or what their motives may be in using them.”"

From that quote, Colangelo tells us exactly what the Sixers told The Ringer for their report, in which he operated the @Phila1234567 account to “keep up with the industry and current events” while claiming to have never posted anything or know anything about the other four accounts.

Another player that was a frequent target of the other accounts was Embiid, as he told ESPN`s Adrian Wojnarowski the following last night regarding the Colangelo situation:

So all in all, this whole situation just seems very fishy. And Colangelo, who already was not a fan favorite in Philadelphia, sees himself under a lot of fire. Going into an offseason where the Sixers will look to bolster their roster with a superstar, they need to get to the bottom of this report quickly, or this may loom over free agency and prevent the Sixers from making any big moves.

If it turns out that Colangelo was behind these burner accounts on Twitter, then the right move would be to fire him right away. As much as he denies it, if this bombshell report is true then Colangelo’s reputation would be tarnished and quite simply, players would not want to come play for Philly.

In a summer where the Sixers are trying to lure LeBron James to Philly, or possibly trade for Kawhi Leonard, they can`t afford to have any of these distractions. So as tough as it may be, this investigation must be concluded and a decision must be made as soon as possible.

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If it turned out that it wasn’t Colangelo behind those burner accounts, then the situation gets even weirder since the Sixers would need to find out who has been running those accounts and releasing information that was never released by the team to the general public.

A lot can happen over the next few weeks, or months. But if there is one thing we know for sure, it is that the Sixers cannot afford to have anything like this loom over them for a long time as they look to take the next step towards contention for an NBA Title.