The Ringer NBA Show - The Bryan Colangelo Twitter Story With Ben Detrick | The Ringer NBA Show (Ep. 279)

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

The Ringer's Chris Ryan sits down with writer Ben Detrick to discuss The Ringer's investigation into Bryan Colangelo and a number of Twitter accounts. They break down how the story started, how they reported it out, and how it's been received since publication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to a special episode of The Ringer NBA show. My name is Chris Ryan, and today I am joined by Ben Dietrich. Ben wrote a story for The Ringer yesterday, which you may have heard about. It is called The Curious Case of Brian Colangelo and the Secret Twitter account. Ben and I have been working on this story for a really long time. He brought it to me earlier this year, and we kicked it around for months on end. And then in the last two weeks, it really heated up. What the story says, gosh, well, where to start?

What the story essentially says is there are some weird behaviors by some very odd Twitter accounts and that we think at the ringer that we see some similarities between these Twitter accounts. And one of these Twitter accounts, after we approached the Sixers last week, has been confirmed to belong to Sixers team president, Brian Colangelo. And since then, a lot of people have drawn their own conclusions. but what Ben does in his piece that I think is excellent, and you should obviously read if you haven't read it already, is basically lay out this huge case

for how these Twitter accounts have been operating over the last few years, which happened to coincide with Brian Colangelo's time with the Philadelphia 76ers. And some of the things that these accounts have done is engage in critiquing players like Joel and Bede, Joliel Ocifor, Nirlens-Noehl. They have critiquet. the past Sixers regime of Sam Hinky, who Colangelo replaced as basically the basketball

decision maker at the franchise, as well as Toronto Raptors President, Masay Ujiri, who Colangelo was in turn replaced by in Toronto. It also talks in detail about a trade that would become the trade for Markell Fultz, for the number one pick that would become Markell Fultz. And perhaps most alarmingly, there is, is disclosure of information relating to Jalil O'Khafore and a possible failed physical that may have scuttled a trade in the 2016-17 season for the former Duke Bigman Jule O'Kofour. Okay, so that's the basics. And now I have Ben with me. And Ben and I are going to talk about how this story came about

and where we kind of go from here. So, Ben, what I wanted to ask you first, because this story, like all great stories, has a great origin. Tell me about how this story first came to you. Well, first, Chris, thanks to everyone at the ringer yourself and everyone on the editorial side who helped put this story in motion and kind of shepherded it through to where it is now. And also my buddy, Andrew Kuo,

who helped me sift through a lot of data early on when I was going through piles and piles of tweets and had no idea what was really on my hands. but the story first came when I got a DM on Instagram and I got one also on Twitter, so I'm just going to say Twitter, but it was the same in both, by an account that only followed one person,

and that person was me. And they said, I have a scoop. Would you be interested? And I said, yes. And it's funny because right before I got on air here, I noticed that people have found his tweet to me and are like wildly retweeting it now, that going back to, I think,

was January, like 31st when he first contacted me and said he wanted to DM me about the story. So he said, follow me back so I can DM you, right? Exactly. So then, you know, he sent me an email and he laid out this case. And, you know, what we've presented to people is more or less the case that he brought to me. We've just dug in and went far more granular and did a lot of legwork. But, you know, all credit to this guy, you know, he came forward with these accounts. And here we are months later, and one of them has been acknowledged. And the other four, there's some compelling evidence that points towards certain people.

And, you know, I mean, just a lot of credit to that guy. I guess what I was what I'm saying. What are you comfortable telling us about the source? I think I understand more about his motivations than I do who he is. Gotcha. He told me he worked in artificial intelligence, and he was cagey about a lot of things. my general thing is that he's a Sixers fan and he was not a

supporter of the Colangelo tenure. He said these guys are ruining the Sixers. I think I've found these accounts, this evidence, and I think we should write a story on him. He discussed taking it to Reddit initially and said he was down to do

sort of a data dump and expose them and have people dig through him, but he wanted a real story and versus just having it combed through online. And I'm just fortunate that he did that. Now, listeners who are not familiar with the minutia of Sixers fandom, it may surprise some people to learn that there are any people out there like this. But one of the strangest things about this story was that I was not shocked at all that someone came to Ben with this idea. Just, just, because I'm very familiar with the mindset of a Sixers fan. I am a Sixers fan, full disclosure,

but more so I'm aware of how the Sixers fan base over the years is, let's say, educated to the point of driving themselves crazy, is that I think that would be a fair way to put it. They are as intimately involved with the minutia and the day-to-day workings of an entire NBA franchise, not just what they see on the court, but the pick protections and the pick swaps and the cap space and are we going to bring Jonah Bolden back from Europe ever? And these things that maybe the casual NBA fan is just like,

tell me who the starting five is and let me know if they're going to make the playoffs. Sixers fans are the record collectors of NBA fans. They are obsessive and they are passionate. I was at a Brooklyn Nets game and there was a guy in front of me who was clearly a Sixers fan and just chanting for Rashon Holmes to enter the game just over and over repeatedly and furiously. And I was just like, that's interesting. You really want the third string center on the Sixers

and an away game against the Nets to just get on the court. I was like, I don't think you're a blood relation to Rishon, but that's good passion right there. And that's sort of the kind of fan we're talking about. Okay, so in February you were contacted. This source claims to have put together this case in which he suggests that he has evidenced, that points towards

Brian Colangelo operating multiple Twitter accounts. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that he is operating Philo 123, 4, 5, 6, 7,

which the Sixers, which Brian Colangelo has confirmed is his Twitter account. And that Philo 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 shares Twitter behaviors, following patterns, et cetera,

with these other accounts that are all also sharing like Twitter behavior with one another, and that if you look at the Venn diagram of what these Twitter accounts do, whether it's defending Colangelo in public, following a Twitter account associated with a man who at least at one point was Colangelo's agent Warren LaGerry, seems to have a deep interest in the University of Chicago basketball program where Brian Colangelo's son plays, and several other really, really specific details, you start to get this picture. And the Sixers, we went to the Sixers

last week, Ben. And I think what it's important to know is that we've sort of been working on this story for a while, but we were working towards getting our ducks in a row so that we could approach the Sixers, correct? Yeah, I think that's a good way of phrasing it. You know, we had these five accounts and we looked through them and they're different names and they were connected in ways. that you mentioned, but they were also distinct in when they began and when they finished and the kind of details that were divulged or discussed. And you could say that the older ones, there were more threads to certain people, and the newer ones perhaps were more cautious. Just as a way of describing the behavior online. So I think when you had the first two,

and we approached the team with those, I was more comfortable asking them about those. And when you say those first two, you're talking about Philo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and you're talking about Eric Jr., correct? An Eric Jr. account, right. Yeah. So I went to the team and I asked about those accounts,

and then they came back to me, and they were like, yeah, you know, it's not Eric Jr. And then they were like, Philo 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yes, that is him. He operates that account. That is echoed by the statement that they gave to the ringer that was published in the story yesterday. And then after that occurred, I was watching those accounts, the other three that I had not mentioned. The other three being enough uncone sources, which is unknown spelled wrong, honest Abe, and still bawling. And you were watching activity on those three accounts. And what happened?

Yeah, I was just sitting there and I was refreshing them and, you know, every few minutes. and then I saw Steel Ballin go down and it went to private. Then a few minutes later, I checked back and I saw Honest Abe go down and enough cone sources also. So within a, I would say, a 15 to 20 minute period, at least while I was watching, they went down. And that was the exact same time when Brian Colangelo was notified by the Sixers representative. We were told that Brian Colangelo was notified and that's when the Sixers initially confirmed that Philo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

belonged to Brian Colangelo, and this is last Tuesday. This is May 22nd. Yeah, so, I mean, I think that that's a distinct part of this story here, is that those accounts went private at the exact same time when he was notified, and then when I asked

the Sixers' representative if he had spoken to anyone else, he said no. Right, and why did you ask the Sixers' Representative that, just so people understand? I wanted to make sure that he didn't broadcast it within the organization and say 20 people found out about it and then they could bring down the accounts. Once that connection was made, I thought we had a really interesting case to present to the people.

Draw your own conclusions from that. Right. So Ben and myself and Craig Gaines and Megan Schuster and Sean Fennessey and the folks over at the Ringer, we worked on the story for about a week. and we got to Tuesday, we got to yesterday, and we put together pretty much what you see on the website now. And then we went to the Sixers during the day yesterday and you went back to the Sixers, and what did you tell them yesterday?

Yesterday I told them more or less what I just explained, that we had two accounts, but now it was about five. I explained their behaviors. I gave them a number of screenshots of the kind of material, that these accounts had been broadcasting. And I think I gave examples from all four or five of them. And because three of them had now been turned private, so they couldn't view them if they just tried to.

And then we asked for a statement, and we waited. Yes, yes. And we waited a little longer. And then we waited some more. And then we got the statement that says, acknowledging that the FILA account is indeed Brian Colangelo's. disavowing the other five. And I don't want to misstate their verbiage.

No, I can actually... I'll just read the... Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Like many of my... This is Brian Colangelo's statement to the ringer. 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 at Philo-1234-567 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 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. And that's the end of the statement.

So let's take it from there. We published the story last night. Obviously, it became something of a sensation, multiple, I mean, pretty much anybody who spends any time on NBA Twitter was talking about it. You also had Joelle Embed participating in the discourse in his inimitable way with memes, with jokes, with roasts, and eventually with a, I would say a carefully worded apology at the end of the evening, or more or less just saying, like, fun night on Twitter, we'll see where this

goes. And the story sort of took on a life of its own. And now it's being pursued by obviously other media outlets, looking at different angles within the story. I guess I wanted to ask you, Ben, what do you think is the most interesting and worth and notable piece of evidence

within the story that you presented? Before I answer that, I just wanted to say one thing about this story that I really like is that we took it very seriously and did the diligent work and the background on it, but it is funny. And I really enjoy that element of this. It is fun.

It involves people's lives and it should be taken seriously, but you have things about collars. You have memes. You have basketball players. It's not like other scandals and that have really gruesome and horrible elements. Like, there's bad stuff, but it's also a funny basketball scandal. And I think that's what I've kind of enjoyed about it. As far as your question goes, I think the most compelling evidence outside of the fact that the accounts went down when I contacted the team, and then they deleted 37 accounts from the Stillballon account

that linked back to Colangelo or the other accounts that they had acknowledged. Outside of that sort of potential cover-up of information, when I look back at the story and the contents of it and what we found during the investigation, I think the tweet from one of the accounts that describes being blinded by the Delaware 87's jerseys, being posted on the same day and time that Brian Colangelo was there, and then having them right next to each other in the story. I felt like that was a strong and significant piece of the story. When you look at it and you realize,

that's tough, long odds is what I'm saying here. To have those things occur randomly. I think that this story presents a lot of on their taken alone, strange coincidences that then pile up into something much greater than that. And that's sort of one of the most fascinating parts about this story. It's a story that I feel like only could happen in 2018 in some ways. We talked about that towards the end of the story, but it's such a strange scenario.

No matter which way it breaks from now on, the idea that these multiple accounts seemingly having inside information that very few people could know about players, players health, players training routines, players social lives, and these, you know, like you mentioned the fun part, but these amazing sartorial defenses, it's just such an incredible accumulation of information. And you start to look at these tweets forever, which we kind of have been. and you start to hear the same voice in your head. The patterns of language start to feel together.

They meld together and you start to hear this voice. And you almost imagine someone using these accounts. Dude, I kind of went insane. The fact that I have read every single one of these tweets, I've read, I've looked at all their retweets, I've looked at all their likes on all of these accounts. And I feel the exact same way. All of a sudden it just becomes this,

bitter, chirping, griping voice in the back of your head that's like just yapping about this sign of stuff. And it kind of goes back to the fact that I know I had blocked or at least muted one of those accounts. And I know that other Sixers writers have told me that they had muted some of those accounts as well. Right. Or even maybe blocked them. But it's like this just harping voice all the time when you read through them and you're really going down this weird, you know, wormhole kind of into someone's brain in their, they're id and it's a very weird experience and very oddly intimate. We'll be back with Ben Dietrich after a quick word from our sponsor.

Today's Ringer MBA show is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about a few of our shows that we've got going on on the Ringer podcast network. If you're interested in sports and media, if you're listening to this podcast, you must be. I would recommend that you check out the press box on Channel 33 with Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker, they talk about the week's news and national affairs, but specifically through the lens of how we're hearing about these stories, how we're reading about these stories, how we're seeing them on our televisions, how we're listening to them on podcasts.

It's a media-centric view at the world today, and I can't recommend it more highly. That's the press box on Channel 33, subscribe to Channel 33 to get the press box. Obviously, the Ringer NBA show is typically talking about the NBA finals and the NBA draft. We've been going whole hog during this playoffs. You can listen to Heat Check on Sunday nights. You can listen to KOC and Chris Vernon. Sources say group chat will be on Thursday night for the NBA finals, game one, and obviously draft class on Fridays to get you ready for the upcoming NBA draft.

So without further ado, let's get back to the Ringer NBA show with Ben Dietrich. So I want to talk as we round this out a little bit about some of the players who were mentioned in the piece. Obviously, Jalil O'Khafore is one. and Okifor was always sort of surplus to requirements once Joelle and Bede started to really click. And one of the things that has always been, it was always an issue for Calangelo early on in his tenure with the Sixers was what to do about Okofor, this sort of third big man that the Sixers had, the number three pick overall out of Duke. And it was expected that Okrafor was going to be moved almost a year and a half before he actually. actually was moved at February of 2018 at the trade deadline. Well, actually, I think the first time we thought he was going to be traded was even his

rookie year at the deadline in 2016. Right. And then we really thought he was going to get traded at the deadline in 2017. And by that time, Colangelo was running the Sixers. And to your point, there clearly wasn't enough room to have all these guys on the team. Right. And I believe it was a few days before the deadline. but Jalal Oka-Four was pulled out of the lineup

and left in Philly. I believe the Sixers went on to play a road game in Miami and maybe one in Boston. Yeah, and this is the deadline in 2017. But, you know, those are the kind of things that don't really happen. When guys get pulled out, they get traded. Instead, he was pulled out for several games

and then went back to the team. And there are only so many conclusions you can draw from that that the negotiations fell apart. but why would you pull a guy out of games while negotiating? I just mean, it was an interesting and very unique situation, and there was a huge uptick in criticism of Colangelo and simultaneously activity from these accounts.

And they really went out there, and they repeatedly said and pushed over and over and over two members of the media that... Sixers, beat writers, yeah. It was a full-fledged campaign to basically make the point that Jal O'Kefa-Four is being protected by the team and it was not the Sixers front office's fault that he had not been traded. And that Ocalfour, these accounts repeatedly ask members of the Sixers media to ask Ocifor

about a failed physical. It was about asking Ocifor if he had failed a physical. It was about inquiring with the Sixers to set up interviews in order to ask these questions like that. It was really trying to persuade them to write a specific story and to ask Okafore about potentially failing a physical. Right. One of the stories of this Sixers season,

this season was the handling of the Markell Fultz situation. Markle Fultz, number one draft pick, point guard out of Washington. The Sixers traded with Boston to move up to select him at number one. And Fultz barely played the season. Played a few games towards the end of the season,

played one or two games in the Miami series, and just really was not a part of this Sixers season. And that has also been something that Colangelo has been criticized for is his handling of the Fult situation. What did you learn about that by looking at the accounts? I totally agree with you. There was an uptick in activity from the accounts that coincided with a period where

Colangelo was getting lombasted. And he made the trade that sent Jason Tatum and a future first round pick to the Celtics. So late in the season, with Faults out and Jason Tatum playing great, there's been a lot of heat on him at that point. So the accounts coinciding with this, they discuss a lot about faults, and they maintain that it is all mental. That's what the accounts are saying.

There's nothing wrong with the shoulder. They do not say that at all. Yeah, it is only mental. They blame it on his relationship with his trainer. They blame it on messing up his jump shot. And then ultimately, they blame it on him. And there are times when they say he should be playing and he's not. It's up to him.

He was going to play, but he got scared. I mean, to paraphrase. They basically say one time, like, grow a pair. And they lay it all on him. And none of it on like the front office. Okay. And now let's take it from where, that's what we know. That's what the story says.

That's where we've gotten to this point. It's Wednesday afternoon. The Sixers this morning announced that they would be conducting an internal investigation into these accounts into this whole story. Where do you think we go from here? I'm not really sure what their internal investigation entails.

I have no idea. I don't think it's necessarily something that's going to discover who created these accounts. That would be my feeling. Going forward, I think what's really interesting is that the internet is this wild, wonderful place.

does a lot of work for you. And I think that's what's been really fascinating after working on this with you, with a few people, but in a very cloistered environment, seeing all these people interested in the story and exchanging theories and people texting me,

I think this is happening, or that's happening, or digging things up and putting them up on Instagram and stuff. It's really, it's very exuberating. Yeah, it's a, I'm exuberant?

It's your exuberant. It's, it's one of those really, uniquely modern stories. We'll be following it wherever it goes. I want to say thank you so much to Ben Dietrich, who, you know, I think I've been waiting my entire career to see a story like this come across my inbox. So thanks to Ben, thanks to everybody who works at the ringer who worked on the story, and we will, I'm sure, be talking about it more in the future. Thanks, Ben. Oh, thank you, man. And I appreciate the help from you and everyone at the ringer, of course. Thanks, brother. Later.