The Ringer NBA Show - Bryan Colangelo’s Resignation and the Future of the Sixers With Ben Detrick | The Ringer NBA Show (Ep. 285)

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier sit down with writer Ben Detrick to discuss the news of Bryan Colangelo resigning from the Philadelphia 76ers, and examine what that means for the 76ers organization heading into the draft and free agency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome to a special edition of the Ringer NBA show. My name is Chris Ryan. I am joined today by Justin Barrier. Hello. And on the phone, Ben Dietrich. What's up, Ben? Hey, Chris, what's going on, man? Oh, not much.

Not much going on at all. Guys, obviously, we woke up today. We started our workday, and we found out that Brian Colangelo had resigned from the Philadelphia 76ers. In case you have been living under an NBA-shaped rock for the last week and a half, on Tuesday, May 29, the ringer published a story by Ben that examined the curious activity of multiple Twitter accounts that shared some behaviors with an account confirmed to belong to Sixers' GM Brian Colangelo. And in the week and a half that followed, there was speculation that those other accounts were being operated by Calangelo's wife, Barbara, that speculation was largely happening on Internet Detective

Twitter, Sixers' detective Twitter. Last week, it was reported that the Sixers were going to bring in an outside law firm, Paul Weiss, to conduct an investigation. And that firm interview Brian Colangelo and his wife separately, and on Thursday, Colangelo resigned from the Sixers. His wife has admitted to, quote, establishing and operating the accounts, according to a statement from Paul Weiss. And the statement goes on to say that they could not conclude that Mr. Colangelo was aware of the Twitter accounts prior to the May 22nd press inquiry. The May 22nd press inquiry is when the ringer first reached out to the Sixers to ask about

the existence of two of these Twitter accounts, including one that Brian Colangelo would go on to say was one that he was using to read the internet, basically. And in their statement, Paul Weiss goes on to say that there was, quote, substantial evidence that Brian Colangelo was, quote, the source of sensitive non-public club-related information that was disseminated on these Twitter accounts that Barbara Bettini was operating. Calangelo, for his part, has released a statement today that says, in part while I am grateful that the independent investigation conducted by the 76ers has confirmed that I had no knowledge of or involvement in the Twitter activity conducted by my wife, I vigorously dispute the allegation that my conduct was in any way reckless. At no point did I ever

purposefully or directly share any sensitive, non-public club-related information with her. So there's a little bit of disagreement there, obviously, between Colangelo and the Sixers in their statements. head coach Brett Brown will take over the basketball operations of the Sixers on an interim basis. Brown recently signed a three-year contract extension with the team, and Monty Williams was recently hired to join Brown's coaching staff, and the Sixers are going to begin a search for a new general manager soon. Okay, so we have some closure. This has been a fascinating week to watch from both on the sidelines and in the middle of the huddle. some ways. We wrote this story, Ben, you can attest to this in a very specific way. I think that

there is some speculation or there's some talk about how we framed this conversation or this piece that Ben wrote, but it was done very precisely. It was done because there was these too strange to be coincidental similarities between these accounts, between these five accounts, one of which was confirmed by the Sixers to belong to Brian Colangelo, and now the others, which we know belong to Barbara Bettini. Ben, now that this has sort of come to a conclusion, what are you thinking right now? I guess I don't want to say, what's going through your mind, like a sideline reporter, but now that we have some sort of finality to it, what do you think? Well, I think that's a relief to me, just as someone who wrote the story, there was a lot of attention, a lot of eyeballs on it for obvious reasons. and to have it conclude,

feels good. It feels good. I can move on with my life. I don't have to talk to Chris Ryan on the phone 17 to 45 times a day. You know, like, I can move on with my life. Yeah, you want to get dinner or something sometime soon? Yeah, Ben and I have been in constant contact with each other over the course of the week because we were just curious about how this was playing out.

The way the Sixers handled this, Justin, came under some scrutiny. this is a franchise that has done things to put it in a very precise way has done things in their own way over the last couple of seasons. Obviously, they had Sam Hinky in charge of the team for a while. They brought in Jerry Colangelo

to sort of oversee the franchise and then, at least according to Colangelo and the Sixers, Calangelo is not a part of bringing on his son as the general manager. He had recused himself from that search, but Brian Colangelo joins, he's the GM, and now we're here.

the time between Ben, the original publishing of Ben's story and now, there was a ton of different stuff flying around out there, but at the end of the day, the Sixers arrived at the conclusion that they arrived at. Yeah, and I think part of this, just as someone who's been tangential to the process,

no pun intended there, it just seems like a lot of this has caught on a second life, specifically because of things that they had done leading up to this. Not only removing San Hinkie or bringing in the Calangelo's and Hinky leaving as a result of that in such a public way,

but also because of everything that sprung up before that, Hinky obviously became a cult figure, just because of what he had going on in Philadelphia, and also kind of the fan base took on its own life. And to a certain extent, this whole story, this whole spectacle, if you will, just kept going in the aftermath simply because of everything that happens in Philadelphia, just around that team. And now it's funny that Ben mentions that he's kind of getting closure here.

I feel like I'm getting closure just for, from afar simply because it seems like at the very least we have some information to work with now. It's not only just a Colangelo story, but it's a basketball story that's going to have repercussions that are going to reverberate throughout the league. Yeah, Ben, I think that it's worth talking about a little bit that, and we talk about this in the piece, you wrote about this in the piece that you are, to some extent, you're a journalist, but you're also someone who's very passionate about the Sixers, and you are someone who I think people thought, well, why Ben, why has Ben the person with this story? And is it because

he had some sort of grudge against the Calangelo's? But that's not really what this is about, right? Well, look, there is obviously truth to the idea that Sixers fans have been radicalized, or at least a sect of them since during Hinkie, during the criticism that came along with that, and in the aftermath of Hinkie's departure. We've seen a radicalization, and you see it with the gatherings of Spike Eskin and those guys. And you see it with the amount of people who engaged in like this, you know, rabbit, going down the rabbit hole with a scavenger hunt and finding these accounts that apparently belong to Brian Colangelo's wife. As for myself, I think I can draw a distinction between me saying wild reckless stuff on Twitter and the stuff that I write.

And while I understand that people are skeptical that someone can draw those lines, I don't think I've had an issue with it. When I've done stories from the ringer in the past, I've talked about Dario Sharich, I've talked about Robert Covington. I didn't even mention Brian Colangelo's name in either of those stories. I think, I understand why people would critique

me being a fan and me writing this story, but just as a professional, I didn't feel like that really came into play. Yeah, I think that it's worth noting that you don't really get to pick the stories that find you sometimes. And in some ways, we were really diligent about kicking the tires on this tip that Ben got. And I think we were very internally, I think, healthily skeptical about the findings that we were coming up with. And I think what you see at the end of the day here,

it's funny that Ben says, you know, you make a distinction between what I say on Twitter and how I conduct myself as a professional, because in some ways, that's kind of what this story wind up being about. And it was about those lines of where the private life, candidly, where the private life of a married couple ends and where the public life of what is privileged information starts and how that information was disseminated. And whether or not that information, you know, Brian's assertion that he did not know about these Twitter accounts and that he doesn't think that he acted recklessly, I kind of understand

why he's saying that. Do you know what I mean? I still think that ultimately the right decision was made by the Sixers. But I do understand that we're in this new world where like the lines between what's private and what's in public is a little bit murky. Right. And I thought it was interesting. I listened to Bobby Marks, who had a big part of the Brooklyn Nets organization the other day, basically saying he would tell his wife similar things just because that's the way a marriage works. I'm not married personally, so I don't know the type of like the work-related information that gets tossed around in those instances. but I thought that was telling that he would tell his wife those certain things. But at the end of the day, I think it comes down to the fact that the type of information that got revealed there, as you mentioned.

And it wasn't necessarily just team information. It seemed like it came from a point of view, at least from my perspective. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not only that it revealed things about Markell Fultz that perhaps we didn't know about a few weeks ago, but it also came from a critical standpoint, which obviously is going to lead back to Brian. Yeah, and that's, I think, probably at the heart of what made it untenable for Brian to stay, aside from the fact that you could call this, you know, this was a violation of trust,

obviously, not only between the team and Brian, but between the franchise and Brian and Josh Harris and the people who hire Brian, but also the guys on the team. And this was, these were tweets that talked about in B, they talked about. Fultz, they talked about Brett Brown, Ben, and it's impossible to imagine how that damage could have been repaired going forward. Yeah, I don't think it was possible. You have the star player of the team who is aware or at least believes that the GM's wife thinks that he is a slob and lazy and has a big ego. And if she thinks that, where is she getting it from? It's not that your general manager is in his kitchen at night saying,

this guy is so hardworking and doesn't party enough. And then his wife potentially goes online and says the exact opposite. I think to Chris's point, these are reflections of a worldview, of a general manager and 30 years of palace intrigue in the NBA. And from going through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tweets, a lot of things popped out. there was a hostility towards the San Antonio Spurs.

There was a love of Mike D. Antony. There were the kind of beliefs that would fall totally in line with this first family of the NBA. Yeah, it's sort of strange. You know, we both, all three of us have been working in and around the NBA for years now. And I think that we're all aware of the fact that, you know, you hear stories, you hear rumors. You hear, oh, this guy doesn't like this guy or this is, there's a beef with that person. or, you know, this agency works well with that guy, but not so well with this guy. And it's, that stuff's hard to chase down.

It's rare that you get anything as unvarnished as the tweets that you see here, you know, where you get this almost. Oh, it was completely fascinating. Yeah. It's outrageous. You're looking into the brain of like the ultimate NBA lifer. Yeah. Yeah.

Or at least his wife, you know. And, and what happens when those, when those two people are talking? you know, there's still debate about what, you know, I think that there was some suggestion there from Colangelo, from Brian Colangelo, that even some of the things that Barbara Bettini has admitted to tweeting were actually wrong. Right. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is it does open up further questions if we're looking at this down the road about the Sixers organization, a team that we thought maybe months ago was the next dynasty in the NBA. Yeah. Maybe things aren't as easygoing as they seem. Maybe there are riffs there that we didn't see because this is the naked truth. This isn't

filtered through reporting or secondary sources or whatnot. We do get to see what exactly happens in there. And as you mentioned, it did seem like there were almost disparities between some of the accounts that were given there. And if there's any indication that maybe Colangelo, this isn't entirely him, it's more of his wife's interpretation of it. One thing specifically that caught our eyes was just the Jaliel Okafor situation. Yeah, so that there was in this, and you can see this in the piece, that there had been a series of tweets that, I believe it was still bawling. The S. Bonham's account had been actively urging Sixers, writers, and other people to ask about a Jaliel Okafur-filled physical when he was sort of on the tray block in the 2017 season, 2016-17 season, I believe. And, you know, O'Khafore had obviously been the odd man out on the Sixers, and he was on the

trade block for a while. And these accounts were urging people to check into a failed physical. We did check into a failed physical a little bit, and we asked a couple of teams about it, and we weren't able to come up with anything. In fact, we heard quite the opposite, that it was an issue over pick protections rather than a physical. Ben, what do you think about when you hear about something like that? It is still, you still do get into a, Foggy's area with that. Well, we're dealing with an unreliable narrator here, and it's someone with a transparent agenda.

They're online to defend Brian Colangelo's decisions and his collars and everything he does. That doesn't mean what they're going to say is necessarily accurate because they have one idea, and it's get on there and make sure that he looks good to internet strangers. So, right, some of the things might be. true. Some might be half-truths. Some could be fully fictitious. We don't actually know because it's coming through a prism of someone who is just there for one reason. We'll be right back with Ben, but first a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Ringer MBA show is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring is challenging, but there's one place you can go where hiring is

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And right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash RingerN-B-R-N-G-E-R-N-B-R-N-G-R-R-N-B-R-R-N-B-ZIPR the smartest way to hire. Let's talk a little bit about what happens going forward. Let's talk about a little bit what happens with the Sixers. I'm curious what you guys think are some of the knock-on effects here. Obviously, there's some work to be done to repair the relationships between the current Sixers and the franchise itself.

From what you know about Brett Brown, Ben, do you think that he's the right guy to kind of, to mend these fences? I don't think Brett Brown is going to remain in a GM capacity longer than necessary. I would say he's probably the ideal guy for this situation. there were some speculation in those tweets about his relationship with Nerland's Noel. But other than that, Brett Brown came off relatively unscathed in terms of his relationship with the players. There were some comments about his offense or his substitutions, but there was no material that made Brett Brown look bad as a person. So I don't think he's in any danger of losing the team or having any fallout from this.

I do think if Jerry Colangelo stays on in whatever capacity that is, that could be a source of some friction, especially if he's viewed as having oversight of personnel moves, because then you're just sort of shifting this family worldview from the wife to the husband to the father. And they're all kind of incapaculated, excuse me, incapacitated, excuse me, into the same idea. I don't think you can separate any of them at this point. Justin, one thing that I'm really curious about to see going forward, and Ben, feel free to chime in on this as well, is over the last couple of seasons, obviously, the Sixers, they have this amazing player in Joe Allen Beat. But the management of his minutes, the management of his health, both on the part of the team, and you could argue on the part of the player in terms of how the player is managing his own career, has been a real source of debate. right and minutes limits whether or not his injuries are being properly communicated

to both the press or the medical staff or however you want to frame that and at the end of the season when they were in the playoff series against Miami and be it obviously on the bench for the first two games of that series sent out a series of like I'm tired of being babyed kind of messages do you think that we'll see a different kind of relationship between a different kind of relationship between the front office and players like that

when it comes to their career management. Yeah, I think that to Ben's point, I think it's educational look at what happened in the aftermath of that whole instance with Embed in the playoffs, which was, I believe Brown in the press conference that night stood up for InB. Said he loved that his passion came out in that instance that he wanted to play. And I think if you're looking at it going forward, maybe Brown is the best person to handle it, just because everything you hear about him is that he's so good at Man. managing the players. People respect his voice. He does come from the pop tree. It seems like a guy

like LeBron definitely values that. And so I do wonder if even if it is an interim basis, if having Brett to kind of manage the situation will benefit them in the long run. Yeah, I agree. I mean, if you look at the one guy who's the one guy who's ended up beloved from this entire fiasco going back several years, is Brett Brown. And you can tell the players respect him. He always has their back. He is a good coach, if you look at any sort of metrics, whether it's the amount of passing, high value shots, transition defense.

He stands out as being pretty much good at what he does across the board and respected by everyone, including the press. I think he's really ideal. The one thing for me is whoever comes in has a lot of decisions to make because the Sixers are really front-loaded on the roster. So you have so much great talent, but it's all at Power Forward or Center. And Covington might even be a Power Forward

if he was on a team like the Rockets. So I think that's the big issue. Is Brett Brown going to make personnel decisions? I don't know, but someone has to in three weeks. Well, it sounds like he'll definitely be in charge of selecting the number 10 pick in the draft and the 26th pick in the draft. I almost wonder whether or not

this is a draft that they'll just be like let's just make smart responsible picks and not get too creative with packaging 10 and 26 and someone else for something. I wonder if you'll see a little bit more of a conservative style going into the summer. But look, Brian Colangelo, the cell, his tagline was essentially relationships.

The attractive part about him as a GM was supposed to be, I have got decades of time spent in this league, and this is a huge free agency summer for the Sixers. Justin referred to this earlier. We had been talking throughout that 16-game win streak or whatever, however many games it was, and then into the playoffs, like the Sixers are all of a sudden the LeBron destination. They're a real player in that regard. They could get into the Paul George mix.

They could try to put together something that would entice the Spurs to give up Kauai. Like they were going to get into the top five player destination mix. Ben, does this whole thing prove that maybe that isn't necessary? Or do you think that the Sixers should probably be looking at someone like a David Griffin who is a kind of a name GM who's worked with big stars before if they want to move forward like that? Right. I mean, the benefit of Colangelo coming in was supposed to be optics and professionalism, right? So you don't necessarily get what you hire someone for, if that's the way we're going forward here. I think Griffin is an accomplished GM.

He's got relationships with guys like LeBron. I also think you could look at someone like Mike Zarin and say, this guy is really smart and has helped build a very strong Boston team. I don't know if players care that much. I think you look at the opportunity, if you were a player, to take the court alongside Joel Embed and Ben Simmons and Covington and play for Brett Brown. And you say, this is a good opportunity.

We can win some games. They'll pay me a lot of money. It's a big market. Let's rock. I don't know if having a respected GM really matters to a player. You know, we talk about, just thinking about what Ben just said, LeBron James went back to Cleveland to play for a guy who dissed him in comic sands. You know, I mean, like, Ben's right.

Like, ultimately money and opportunity talks. Right. And he didn't pick his coach. And the coach left. in pretty quick fashion as a result of that. And LeBron is effectively said in certain situations that it doesn't necessarily matter who is in charge there. He's going to make a lot of decisions,

which is why I think a lot of the speculation has targeted the Lakers simply because it is almost like a blank sheet of paper where you could do anything with it. Yeah. I think it is educational, though, if we look at what the Sixers are going into what the Hawks went through with Mike Boodenholzer. Interesting.

It does feel like in the aftermath, Danny Ferry leaving, Budenhouser got more power than anyone expected he would. And Brett Brown, obviously also coming from the pop tree. I believe they got hired maybe in the same season or maybe around the same season. But now he's in a position where I do wonder what's going to shake out going forward. And I wonder what's going to happen in the transition of power from Brett as he's running the draft, running the front office to somebody else. There are a lot of machinations that are going to be difficult to manage going forward. A lot of the times you'll see a GM wants to be able to pick their coach.

in this case it might be a coach picking their GM because this is a coach who's got a three-year extension, he's the safe pair of hands who's guy in this franchise. I wouldn't be surprised if Brett had a lot to do with the next GM. Do you agree with that, Ben? I think that's absolutely true. I don't think you're going to find someone who is at odds with Brett Brown. He does seem like an affable guy.

Maybe that conceals a reptilian, you know, hatred beneath the surface, but that does not seem like the Brett Brown that is enjoyed by pretty much everybody around the league. I think the timetable here is what's really interesting because we're three weeks away from free agency. And as you guys said, this is a critical juncture for the team. And when I look at this roster, I don't see a lot in the back court. It's actually pretty disturbing when you say this is a team that intends on contending next year.

And you've got zero rotational players or proven rotational players in the back court under contract in a guard dominated league. Whoever is GM, actually, it's a plum job that has some immediate, really tough decisions. Like, what do you do with Markell Fultz? Is it in three weeks? Will you know? What are you going to do with any of these guys in the back court? Are any of them starters?

If not, you've got to figure out how to spend your money or go and get a LeBron and then fill it up with guys who make less money or do trades. It is an intricate situation for a GM. Yeah, there's not a lot of time to assess things. Right, and I don't want to oversell it, but the next couple of weeks could dictate the future of the NBA for the next five years or so. LeBron is in play, Paul George is in play. Not to undersell this. Yeah, exactly.

It's just the Sixers are almost like everything was leading into this summer for them to figure things out because Joel Embed's extension is going to kick in shortly. And then you have Ben Simmons to come in a few years. We don't know about Markle Fultz, but their cap is already essentially committed. and thus they need to take advantage of this lone window in order to build upon it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it'll be a fascinating couple of weeks with the Sixers. Ben, any final thoughts before we sign off? I don't know.

I'm just going to move on and find a new slant. Yeah. All right, you have a cold one. You deserve it. Justin and I will keep an eye on the story. Thanks to you for listening. And Ringar NBA show will be back tomorrow. And also, I just want to thank you guys as well, man.

Thanks for helping me through the story. ringer guys everyone was great my buddy Andrew Quo really helped me with stuff and of course the enough Sixers tipster and the army of Sixers lunatics like it was not a Ben Dietrich production there was a lot that went into this from a lot of different people

All right thanks so much Ben we will talk to you soon thanks for listening. Thank you man Thanks Ben