Jerry Colangelo isn’t wasting any time in his attempt to reinvent the Philadelphia 76ers’ rebuild.
Though some, including general manager Sam Hinkie, have acted like Jerry Colangelo’s installment is but a small piece to a bigger puzzle still being put together by Hinkie, it doesn’t take a recognized genius to see that substantial changes are afoot.
Head coach Brett Brown put pen to paper on a two-year extension. Fine. That was probably going to happen anyway. He’s been one of the few calming presences in Philly over the last two-plus years.
But the pursuit of Mike D’Antoni? And the hope that Shane Battier and/or Elton Brand would agree to come on as a veteran voice? Those wouldn’t exist if Jerry Colangelo wasn’t around.
David Aldridge of NBA.com brought the juicy deets:
Changes are already afoot. Sources confirmed a Yahoo! Sports report Saturday that the 76ers plan to bring in former Suns, Knicks and Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni within the next few weeks to sit on the Philly bench as associate head coach. Other sources said the Sixers are talking to former star Elton Brand and NBA veteran Shane Battier about joining the organization, hoping to bring in guys with sterling reputations to serve as role models for the young players.
“Josh definitely wants to pick up the pace, but some of the people in the organization just don’t get it,” a league source said over the weekend.
Ownership’s—or, depending on how you look at this, the NBA’s—decision to charge Jerry Colangelo with the well-being of the Sixers’ rebuild came at a weird time. Frankly, it was too soon. This teardown was never supposed to be a brief process. It had the makings of something that would take five to seven years.
Abandoning that approach won’t necessarily expedite the rebuild, as Aldridge’s source intimated Sixers owner Josh Harris hopes to do. It could feasibly set it back, because now you’re doing something new. It’s almost as if you’re starting over. And in starting over, the appeal of chasing mediocrity, of gunning for 35-43 wins and late-lottery or low-seeded playoff berths, is there.
Are the above developments a sign that the Sixers are giving into that temptation? Or are they just trying to strike a balance between measurable progress and rebuilding the Hinkie way? Only one player on the roster is older than 25, so bringing in a veteran voice or two and a new assistant coach won’t turn the Sixers into a cyclical first-round exit.
The real test, though, comes this summer, when you look at how the Sixers use their cap space, and whether they’re prepared to jump ship on Hinkie’s vision and overpay middling talent that doesn’t move the big-picture needle in order to pad the win column with some immediate, albeit still not enough, victories.
