Philadelphia 76ers: Bryan Colangelo may not survive the weekend

According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the Philadelphia 76ers will likely make their final decision on Bryan Colangelo’s future within the 24 hours.

After a few absolutely wild days of once-unthinkable news, it looks like ‘Collargate’ could conclude within the next 24 hours for the Philadelphia 76ers.

While the internet has been abuzz with wild theories, gorilla journalism, and a plethora of extrapolation about what Bryan Colangelo‘s alleged usage of burner Twitter accounts means for the team’s future, one party who has been surprisingly quiet about the allegations has been the Sixers themselves.

Though the team did confirm on the record that one of the accounts highlighted in The Ringers‘ expose did, in fact, belong to Colangelo, they have been suprisingly quiet about what could be the most talked about story in all of sports, at least outside of a brief mention in Brett Brown‘s comments about his recently minted three-year contract extension.

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However, that silence could soon be coming to an end.

In a recent appearance on ESPN’s The Jump, Brian Windhorst, the network’s Senior Writer, declared that the team could very well make a decision on Colangelo’s future within the next 24 hours, a report that was later confirmed by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Twitter, with the team’s staff apparently “bracing (themselves) for his dismissal“.

Now granted, the team could ultimately decide that Colangelo does deserve to stay, and steer the team through arguably their most important NBA Draft and free agency period in recent memory, but would outside players even want to come play for a man who would allegedly love to “knock some sense” into his star center?

Some will be quick to point out that Colangelo’s wife, Barbara Bottini, may actually be behind the now infamous small army of Twitter accounts, but does that really make it any better? Sure, it would clear Colangelo of being personally responsible for showing malice towards his own players, but the fact that he was so loose with very sensitive information may actually be worse in a way. For better or for worse, the NBA is a very tight-knit group, with only 30 GMs, 510 players, and a few dozen agents representing them. If an executive, regardless of his intentions, is willing leak such classified information that could negatively brand a player as a locker room problem and potentially prevent them from receiving a lucrative future contract, that GM probably isn’t going to be very popular around the league.

Think overpaying for free agents, receiving lopsided trade offers, and being all but ignored by top prospects.

While it may not matter as much to a midlevel free agent or a player selected in the bottom half of the draft, I highly doubt an NBA superstar like, say LeBron James or Paul George, or a top flight draft pick is going to be knocking down the doors to play for a man with Colangelo’s current reputation, earned or not.

Next: Bryan Colangelo drama ruining Brett Brown’s contract excitement

Though these allegations may ultimately prove false, a shadow has been cast over the entire Philadelphia 76ers organization, and what the team decides to do next could very well define the third act of The Process’ story.