Colangelo proud of progress; would spend on ‘right free agent’
CAMDEN, N.J. » Bryan Colangelo’s first 76ers team lost 26 times more than it won, finished on an eight-game losing streak and concocted the fourth-worst record in the NBA. Good for him, apparently. “I talked about what was going to determine a successful season at the beginning of the year, and everyone wanted to peg it to a number: How many wins will you have, and how many will determine if you are successful,” Colangelo said Friday, the season having been given a day to cool off. “I was clear at the time that I didn’t want to be judged by a number. I wanted to be judged by steps and development of an organization and the growth of a program.”
The Sixers have been growing a program for four years, five if the Andrew Bynum year was included, and that was the one that began with a downtown pep rally. But Colangelo is relatively new to the process, a process he insists is accelerating.
For that, on second thought, he will take that 28-54 record and run with it, aware that the Sixers won only 10 times in the previous season.
“Back to the number, 28 wins,” Colangelo said. “That’s a plus-18 in the win column, the second best in franchise history. And it ranks up with the best of NBA records, perhaps not a top 10, but something in my opinion to be impressed with.”
That’s his assertion, and he will brandish it. And he will remind that the Sixers battled through youth and injury, won 10 games in January had had a robust season-ticket renewal rate.
“We did not have Jerryd Bayless, a key free-agent signing,” Colangelo said. “We didn’t have Ben Simmons, the first pick overall in the draft. There were minutes restrictions on Joel Embiid and ultimately the departure of Joel with the injury.
“You go down the list and say we kept taking punches and we kept fighting.”
The Sixers have been fighting to become relevant again. But when? Colangelo hasn’t said, can’t say, won’t say. But they are not there yet, no matter how alluring their new training center or their young big men may appear.
“Are we where we want to be in respect to the end product? No.” Colangelo said. “Not yet. Because there is a lot of development that is underway with the individuals that we have brought on board to help us. So I do believe the people we’ve assembled on the personnel front, the operations front and the analytics front are best-in-class. And I really feel that we have taken forward that way.”
As for his players, too many of them anyway, they were less than blue-ribbon qualified, even if they did win 18 times more than last year. That’s why Colangelo will seek to make improvements, beginning with the draft, and maybe in the free agent market. As Brett Brown said, “We have money to spend.”
“When we look at players, we look at players that not only fit our system and our team identity and our style of play, but we ask, ‘Does that player have the DNA we are looking for?’” Colangelo said. “And what we are looking for is championship DNA. We talk about the style of play — defend, pace and space — and we are looking for players to check those boxes in every decision we make. You are never going to find a perfect player that fits everything. But that’s what I will go over and that’s what we strive for.”
The Sixers are guaranteed to have a choice among the first seven in the June 23 NBA Draft. If the May 16 lottery is kind, they will wind up, too, with the Lakers’ pick, as long as it is not in the top three. Once that draft status clears, Colangelo will move into the free agent market. Maybe.
“We certainly will make it known that we are in the market and that if there is the right free agent to spend money on, we will,” he said. “Through all the back channels, we hear all time that there are a lot of players looking at us as a desirable free-agent destination. And that is a great positive for us. a step
“The future is out there. Do we want to jump to the future quicker? Or do we want it to happen organically and grow it the right way? ” — Sixers executive Bryan Colangelo on what the future holds for his team
“We talk about the opportunity to play with good, young talent, Dario Saric and Joel and others. We talk about out world-class training complex that ownership obviously has invested in in a big way as a commitment to making this a world-class program.
“We have some decisions to make. We are going to go through different iterations. What would it look like if we land Free Agent X as vs. Free Agent Y? Some of those might be on a particular time line, but we are on a young timeline. That’s the most exciting thing when we talk about. Joel is 23, Ben Simmons is 21, Dario is 23. That’s your three core pieces that you can talk about. It’s an under-25 team. Basically, that’s what we are.”
That’s what they are because they were designed that way, with the previous general manager, Sam Hinkie, OK with bad basketball and high draft picks. And what did they think they would acquire in the draft, 30-year-olds?
That means the Sixers young next season, too. Hang on? “The future is out there,” Colangelo said. “Do we want to jump to the future quicker? Or do we want it to happen organically and grow it the right way? That will be something we will have to decide at some point, not today, but sometime before July 1. And we are going to prioritize our free-agent spending. If we need flexibility going forward, that’s not a bad thing either.”
It’s just a matter will be judged. of will be how it