Someone Wasn't Out To Get Him: The Bryan Colangelo Burnergate Retrospective
Nobody was really out to get him. In the end, Bryan Colangelo got what was coming.
![[art by @digrupert]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde333f0d-aafe-49f0-893d-aa423466efcb_1000x500.png "[art by @digrupert]")
Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He has been legally banned from covering the team in person, and when that ban was set to be lifted, Covid-19 struck. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
The date is June 4th, 2013. On an uncharacteristically warm day in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Raptors are announcing an important arrival: that of Masai Ujiri, the esteemed executive formerly of the Denver Nuggets. Ujiri, comfortable in Denver, left to pursue what he called “a stage I’ve always wanted”: the chance to be head honcho, the lead shot-caller for an NBA organization in hopes of fulfilling its championship dreams. He was brought in to fill a void made by the departure of two-time NBA Executive of the Year Bryan Colangelo, who resigned and took on what the Raptors bluntly titled a “non-basketball” role with the team after years of frustration and stagnation with him at the helm. “The overall goal in the NBA is to win a championship,” Ujiri said. “That has to be the overall goal.
June 4th, 2013 is a date that now serves as a marker in Toronto Raptors history. The date things changed. The beginning of a quest to achieve Ujiri’s ‘overall goal,’ a quest that six years later would result in an NBA Finals victory. It was the beginning of an era of Raptors basketball that was, and continues to be, thrilling for every Raptors fan, every Raptors player, and every Raptors employee -- past, present, and future. Well, every Raptors employee except for one.
The date is December 7th, 2015, a chilly Philadelphia night. The story in town is the Eagles’ upset victory over the New England Patriots. But at the Wells Fargo Center, there was not as much excitement. The Sixers had a game against the San Antonio Spurs, who were resting most of their pivotal players. They did so for good reason -- the Sixers sported a measly 1-20 record, well on their way to an historic 72-loss season (San Antonio won the game by a whopping 51 points). All of a sudden the Sixers called a pregame press conference of which the subject was unknown. But with Managing Partner Josh Harris heading to town to conduct the press conference and the Sixers sporting the aforementioned 1-20 record, it was clear this was not going to be a run-of-the-mill State of the Union.
Three seats appeared in the room typically used by Brett Brown for his press conferences. One was filled by Harris. Another was filled by Sam Hinkie, the controversial General Manager whose feet were being publicly and privately held to the fire more than ever before. The other chair was occupied by Jerry Colangelo, the Chairman of USA Basketball, veteran of team-building with the Phoenix Suns, and decorated “basketball guy.” He was in town for a bombshell announcement: Colangelo, then 76 years old, was the team’s new Chairman of Basketball Operations. Harris and Hinkie played coy as to what it meant for Hinkie’s future, claiming this was just adding an experienced cook to an inexperienced kitchen.
But December 7th, 2015 proved to serve as a marker in Philadelphia 76ers history. The beginning of the end of Hinkie’s mission to bring sustainable, high-end basketball to the organization. It was the rise of an era of Sixers basketball -- more specifically, an era of Sixers management -- that led to their rapid descension from a team previously considered one of the youngest genuine championship contenders in recent history to today, a coin flip to win a playoff series.
We didn’t know it at the time, but December 7th, 2015 was the day the Sixers’ “Process” -- then going in a positive direction long-term -- made a U-turn into the negative, a direction it remains headed in to this day.
You know what happened next: Jerry Colangelo quickly seized whatever authority over the team’s decision-making had not already been handed to him by ownership, and ran Hinkie out of town with an infamous 13-page resignation letter that Hinkie’s faithful supporters quote to this day as if it is religious scripture -- even his use of misattributed Abraham Lincoln quotes. Jerry was in charge of leading a hiring process that ended almost immediately after it started, with the hiring of -- would you look at that -- Bryan Colangelo, Jerry’s son, coming into his first job following his Toronto tenure. Just like that, the Colangelos had hijacked the Philadelphia 76ers. In only a few months, the Sixers went from Hinkie, who collected a jaw-dropping collection of undervalued players, draft picks, cap space, you name it; to Colangelo, who over two years would manage to misuse, bungle or completely waste as many of those assets as he could in such a short time frame.
There are qualities of Colangelo’s performance in Philadelphia specific to basketball that one can point to as evidence of his failure: he never prioritized wing defense, a crucial aspect of success in today’s NBA (which led to the team’s disappointing second round loss to the Boston Celtics in the 2018 Playoffs). Colangelo was also never able to figure out how to back up Joel Embiid with competent center play (one could argue this still applies today).
But Colangelo’s fatal flaw was not that he didn’t build a good enough bench. Bryan Colangelo failed in Philadelphia because of his all-consuming jealousy over his predecessors: Colangelo was known for drafting Andrea Bargnani first overall, Ujiri was known for miraculously trading him for two first round picks. Hinkie had the cult hero status. He was responsible for much, if not all, of the team’s good fortune, not just in the beginning months of Colangelo’s tenure, but for its entirety. Colangelo resented that. Hinkie would get credit for positive developments, Colangelo blamed for the negative ones. Hinkie’s mainstream villainy notwithstanding -- and despite that by any objective measure, Colangelo was treated with the ultimate pair of kid gloves from his opening press conference to his appalling resignation statement -- Bryan had a persecution complex.
Let’s be clear here: Bryan Colangelo was not the first sports executive whose self-interest led to ill-advised decision-making. He was, though, the first whose obsessive nature blew up in flames in the most visible -- and the most odd -- manner possible. He was the first to be publicly mocked by his own superstar. And he was most definitely the first to, in large part, be exposed by the fans of his team.
Here is the absurd and unprecedented, bizarre and confusing, detestable and hilarious story of Bryan Colangelo’s burner accounts.
It’s been more than two years, so let’s set the stage here. It’s May 29th, 2018 -- two days before the NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. The Sixers are coming off an impressive 52-win season, one that ended with 16 consecutive victories and a decisive 4-1 series victory over the Miami Heat, before falling to the Celtics in round two. Embiid had established himself as a superstar. Despite some growing pains, Ben Simmons showed he was on his way. Markelle Fultz had a weirdly invisible year thanks to a mysterious injury, sure, but things were on the up and up in Philly. JJ Redick had an impactful year in his first as a Sixer. Robert Covington continued to blossom into a premier wing, and was rewarded with a long-term contract extension. Dario Saric became a lights-out shooter from beyond the arc. The Sixers were even going to enter the summer with enough cap space and credibility to be considered a legitimate contender for the services of upcoming free agent LeBron James.
So, all of this begs the question: what could go wrong?
Alright. It’s May 29th, 2018. In the Sixers universe, we were identifying free agent targets, talking about the upcoming NBA Finals and thinking about what would have to happen for LeBron to choose the Sixers over the Lakers. Then, on what became one of the most hectic nights of news in Sixers history, we got our first report. But not the one everybody remembers…
May 29th, 8:54 PM EST: The Sixers are giving Brett Brown an extension!
When this leaked, it seemed to simply be Brett’s coronation as this team’s long-term leader, his reward for enduring the brutal years with horrid rosters and coming out on the other side a winning coach. But as it turns out, it was just an attempt to cloud the storm that was on its way.
Before we fast-forward by 24 minutes and get to the real chaos, let me just say this: considering how many times Brett has had to stand in for his bosses to explain away the inexplicable things going on with this team, the fact that his crowning moment was used to help distract from the #1 all-time absurd scandal is just too fitting.
May 29th, 9:08 PM EST: The Ringer publishes story about Colangelo’s possible use of burner accounts
“‘And Here. We. Go.’ - The late Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight, circa 2008” - Jon Rothstein
I remember where I was when this story broke. I was in my kitchen, the same room I’m in as I type this right now -- is there anyone who doesn’t remember where they were? The story, written by Ben Detrick, detailed in extreme depth how five Twitter accounts with strikingly similar characteristics seemed to all be connected to Bryan Colangelo. The source remains anonymous (though we are aware of their own Twitter account, @SixersEnough). The source told Detrick that they worked in artificial intelligence and used an “open-source data analysis tool” to link the accounts to one another after noticing odd patterns of tweets.
One account, @phila1234567, had no tweets. The others, @alvic40117560 (Eric Jr), @Honesta34197118 (HonestAbe), @enoughunkownso1 (Enoughunkownsources), and @s_bonhams (Still Balling), had all been used for the following: critiquing current and former Sixers -- most notably Embiid -- defending Colangelo’s reputation, criticizing his Toronto successor (Ujiri) and Philadelphia predecessor (Hinkie), and disclosing sensitive medical information and other team secrets, among many more less serious things.
At first glance, the tweets coming from these seemingly generic, mediocre Sixers fan accounts are pretty damn funny when tied to the team’s GM. There was, perhaps most famously, a reply to someone marveling at the size of Colangelo’s unusually large collars. “That is a normal collar,” Enoughunkownsources wrote. “Find a new slant.” There was the time Eric Jr CENSORED THE WORD BUTT, and the time he lauded the objectively awful Trevor Booker trade. Eric Jr even tried setting up their daughter with Sixers writer Brian Michael Jacobs, a frequent recipient of their tweets.
But when you dig deeper, you find that this was more than a few goofy bad takes: these accounts are riddled with alarming and problematic posts.
When Colangelo was hired by Colangelo, there were many young pieces and draft picks in place. Embiid was the centerpiece, with pieces such as Dario Saric, Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor and Robert Covington also on the roster. But coming off a 10-72 season, the Sixers had the best odds at the top overall pick. The ping pong balls bounced in their favor, and landed them the golden ticket: the #1 pick to draft Ben Simmons, who would be the first addition of Colangelo’s tenure and a building block potentially the caliber of Embiid.
So it does not surprise that while there are dozens (if not hundreds) of tweets from the accounts lambasting Hinkie holdovers like Embiid and Noel, the accounts all admired Ben Simmons.
HonestAbe once tweeted that they would trade Embiid for “The Unicorn” [Kristaps Porzingis] in a “heart bit.” There was a clear agenda making itself apparent. Ben was the guy to build around, and Joel was the problem child.
“I am not voting for Joel, but I am voting for Ben every chance I get,” Still Balling tweeted during January of 2018 about All-Star Game voting. “Joel was blessed by God with a special talent, now he needs to grow up.”
It should be noted that an older white person saying a younger Black athlete is ungrateful for their talent is age-old racist schtick designed to dehumanize the athlete and diminish the hard work and determination it took for them to get to where they are, despite it being in no way different from the many white players who are routinely applauded for their dedication.
The accounts also showed support for the Muslim Ban and implied Sixers part-owner Michael Rubin “supplied” models to Embiid. Still Balling once implored Stephen A. Smith to apologize for criticizing Markelle Fultz, implying that Stephen A. being a Black commentator meant he needed to support Fultz, a Black athlete. “Show how a grown Blackman can show respect to a young Blackman,” a tweet from April of 2018 reads.
Then came Okafor, a player drafted too high by Hinkie and held onto for too long by Colangelo. The former Duke standout was infamously sent home in 2017 due to an impending trade, but the deal fell apart, and Okafor had to report back to the team despite neither party having any interest in working with the other. It was very embarrassing for the Sixers, who by all accounts had mangled the situation in a manner of epic proportions. But a year and change later, it became clear that the real sin of the Okafor trade fiasco came online.
On several occasions across all of the accounts, it is constantly reiterated that Okafor failed a physical (this supposedly being the reason he did not get traded in 2017). If this is true, it means Okafor’s private medical information was publicly disclosed online by someone attempting to defend Colangelo for not trading him. This is a violation of HIPAA (as well as of any reasonable person’s sense of morality). And it underscores the theme of this entire story: Colangelo’s willingness to do, say, or disclose anything that might make him seem even the slightest bit less to blame.
The two most common targets of the accounts’ ire were Masai Ujiri and Sam Hinkie.
The burners constantly rode Ujiri’s alleged inaction when it came to fixing the fatal flaws of Toronto’s core group of players. (This is the same core group of players for which the accounts credited Bryan Colangelo for assembling such an impressive collection of talent.) They seemed to be stunned by Ujiri’s job security and positive approval rating, at one point claiming that if there were a different person calling the shots, people would be calling for their head.
If you have been on Sixers Twitter for, well, any amount of time, you have been witness to the passion and dedication with which many fans -- often referred to as “Process Truthers” -- will defend Hinkie’s legacy. It’s not hard to imagine how that facilitated familiar feelings of jealousy towards Hinkie. It’s especially not hard to imagine because they tweeted it:
“I feel like Hinkie has been thrown down my throat at every single turn to a degree of unacceptable extremism that makes me resent him.” - Still Balling, just four weeks before The Ringer’s story broke.
Without even realizing it, the person behind the accounts showed their entire hand.
May 29th, 10:45 PM EST: Joel Embiid speaks
This was a story that unfolded entirely on the internet, so it only makes sense that Embiid, the most Online player of all time, inserted himself into it. He first tweeted the infamous picture of his unenthused face from the 2014 NBA Draft with the caption “BRUH.” Then came the real heat from Joel: “Joel told me that @samhinkie IS BETTER AND SMARTER THAN YOU @AlVic40117560 #BurnerAccount,” he tweeted, poking fun at Colangelo’s apparent jealousy of Hinkie’s support.
Luckily for Colangelo and the Sixers, Embiid eventually calmed down. He went on the record to ESPN’s Adrian Wojanorwski, saying that Colangelo had called him to deny any involvement. Joel said “Gotta believe him until proven otherwise.” But he made himself clear that Colangelo needed to be ready to prove himself innocent. “If true, though,” he told Wojnarowski, “that would be really bad.” Indeed, it would be. Joel continued to give Colangelo the benefit of the doubt: “Fun night on Twitter lmao.. All jokes asides I don’t believe the story. That would just be insane,” he tweeted later that night.
But as the fan favorite relaxed, the actual fans did the opposite. Sixers Twitter -- accustomed to bizarre happenings -- was already moving towards the truth, managing to interject itself into a story in a way no fanbase has ever done. Oh, and I was involved too.
May 29th, 11:53 PM EST: I expose the **91 phone number connecting all of the accounts
I was sitting at my kitchen table, maniacally refreshing Twitter on my phone and continually rereading Detrick’s bombshell scoop. The entire night, I had been messaging with my former Liberty Ballers colleague Jake Hyman. Then an idea hit me.
“Prepare yourself,” I wrote to Jake.
I went to the “Reset Password” feature on Twitter’s website and entered Eric jr, HonestAbe and Still Balling. Every single one of these attempts spit out a recovery phone number ending with the two numbers enshrined in Sixers lore: 91.
The tweet blew up immediately. All I remember is that it was actually viral, to the point that my phone was freezing every few minutes from all of the notifications.
Being a sophomore in high school while briefly at the center of a national story in the basketball world was an unusual experience, to be sure. I finished a chemistry test the next morning, checked my phone and saw frantic texts from my dad. He heard about the tweet on the radio on his way to work the next day. In my Sports Entertainment Marketing class, our teacher talked about the tweet in class (Mr. deWolf, are you reading this? I know you’re a Ricky guy), not knowing I was the one who sent it. I remained mostly anonymous; when people asked me about the story I didn’t disclose my involvement. The one time I tried, my friend refused to believe me. He said that it wasn’t me, just some “random person on Twitter.” I guess in a way he was right.
Here is the thing that often gets lost in the conversation about my uncovering of 91: one of the three accounts was also connected to Bryan Colangelo’s personal email address. I confirmed it was him by both checking with someone who had emailed with him before and by finding -- you’ll never guess -- the recovery email for his recovery email! I cropped it out before tweeting for the sake of Colangelo’s privacy, but did make sure to establish that his email was there.
So, what does all of this prove? The 91 aspect of things made it obvious that all of the accounts were being operated by one person. Colangelo’s email being attached only made it easier to identify that he was at least in some way associated with one of the accounts… that is, one of the four accounts that we just established had been operated by one person… anyways, let’s move to the next day.
May 30th, 8:49 AM EST: The Sixers issue a statement
Colangelo gave a statement to The Ringer in their initial piece in which he claimed the inactive account (@phila1234567) belonged to him as a way to keep up with news, but none of the others did. This was the first time anyone from the Sixers sans Embiid had said anything about the matter. The statement claimed that the team had begun an independent investigation into the situation.
May 30th, 10:04 AM EST: Bryan Colangelo reaching out to deny responsibility
Thanks to another Woj Bomb, we officially had Bryan Colangelo’s stance on the burners. He was doing damage control while claiming zero culpability for any of the accounts or their tweets. We will revisit this in a minute. But just a handful of hours later, the start of an all-time piece of sleuthing began.
May 30th, 5:04 PM EST: Legs and Jimmy McCormick theorize the involvement of Colangelo’s wife, Barbara Bottini
Here’s where things get more, to put it lightly, absolutely insane.
David “Legs” Leggieri championed and substantially backed up this theory in the following days. Unfortunately, his tweets from this timeframe have since been deleted -- thanks for making this piece even more time-consuming to write, Legs! -- but the initial theory from him and Jimmy remains. The basis for the idea that Bryan’s wife was operating Eric jr stemmed from accounts she was following belonging to various schools in Toronto and Chicago, including one in which she was on the school board.
May 30th, 5:27 PM EST: “Someone’s out to get me…”
“Someone’s out to get me…” Those are the words Bryan Colangelo said to reporter Jordan Schultz.
Now, let’s pause for a second and go back to The Ringer’s exposé. Read this excerpt from Detrick’s writing. It is the smoking gun of the piece that is not mentioned nearly enough:
“On Tuesday, May 22, I emailed the Sixers and shared the names of two of the accounts, phila1234567 and Eric jr (I did not disclose our suspicions about the other three accounts, one of which, Still Balling, had been active earlier that day; I did this to see whether the partial disclosure would trigger any changes to the other accounts). On a follow-up call that day, Philadelphia’s media representative told me that he would ask Colangelo whether he had any information about the two accounts.
That afternoon, within hours of the call, all three of the accounts I hadn’t discussed with the team switched from public to private, effectively taking them offline—including one (HonestAbe) that hadn’t been active since December. The Still Balling account, which had been tweeting daily, has not posted since the morning of the 22nd (I had already been following Still Balling with an anonymous account of my own, which allowed me to see activity after it went private). Since I contacted the Sixers, Still Balling has unfollowed 37 accounts with ties to Colangelo…”
You get it. As soon as The Ringer asked about just one of the four alleged burners, the remaining three had gone private. According to Detrick, the Sixers spokesperson who had delivered Colangelo’s denial also said they had not mentioned the story to anyone other than Colangelo.
So, let’s be clear here: by this time, Bryan Colangelo absolutely did know who was operating the burner accounts. It was either his own doing, or that of someone who he knew was operating the accounts. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he had not done any of the tweeting himself, he clearly knew who had, otherwise the accounts would not have been able to be made private.
So, let’s call “Someone’s out to get me” what it is: a bold-faced lie.
May 30th, 8:23 PM: 91 is definitively connected to Barabra Bottini
Legs’ and Jimmy’s theory had gained quite a bit of steam by this point, and the popular fan page “DidTheSixersWin” uncovered a job posting mentioning Barbara that included her email and cell phone number… a cell phone number ending in 91. He even took a page out of my book and checked the recovery phone number accompanying Barbara’s email. Once again… 91.
May 30th, 8:39 PM EST: Woj reports Sixers are interviewing Monty Williams for an assistant coaching role
Remember at the beginning of this timeline when the Sixers threw Woj a basketball-related scoop to distract from their non-basketball disaster? Well, here we go again.
When the team hired Williams a few days later, our very own Mike Levin tweeted, in an on-brand moment for him, “I’m the guy who’s successfully distracted by this leak.”
May 30th, 10:17 PM EST: Enter a new character… Jacob Reuben
Just when you thought this couldn’t get more confusing, we all collectively stumbled into Jacob Reuben, a frequent commenter on online articles about the Sixers… and the Raptors.
The account’s posts were found and explained by another unofficial Sixers Twitter member Mike Chiodo, who put together a thread on his findings that the account used similar talking points as the burner accounts, propping up Colangelo while denouncing Hinkie and Ujiri.
This didn’t get nearly as much play as the burners, but let’s be honest: it is way more obvious that this is Bryan Colangelo’s doing. Who the hell else could, for example, be excited about the Sixers hiring a Vice President of Athlete Care (Reuben wrote “Finally one of the biggest problems from Hinkie’s regime has been addressed”) while simultaneously having an axe to grind with Tim Leiweke, the former President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment? Leiweke, who used to run MLSE (the company that owns the Toronto Raptors), has acknowledged that he and Colangelo did not see eye to eye when working together. While the Twitter saga was filled with mystery, this side of the story was not.
Another important note here: Joel Embiid liked the opening tweet of Chiodo’s thread. Whether the Sixers liked it or not (they did not), their best player was continuing to publicly hold their feet to the fire. He was following along the entire time, and would not allow them to let Colangelo off the hook.
June 1st, 12:27 AM EST: The reporting begins
Early in the morning of June 1st, Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe reported what Sixers Twitter was onto days ago: the investigation was focused on Bryan’s wife, Barbara, as the operator of the accounts.
Conventional wisdom on Sixers Twitter was that the team would stubbornly stick by their GM, so it came as a surprise when Woj and Lowe made clear that the team’s owners were embarrassed, and its employees skeptical of Colangelo’s denial of any involvement.
That evening, Brian Windhorst said on ESPN that a decision on Colangelo’s future was likely to come within 24 hours. Were things finally coming to a head? Not yet.
The next 24 hours did not have any decisions. However, they did have quite a bit of humor.
June 1st, 10:23 PM EST: Burnergate takes San Francisco
Jonathan Murray is a passionate Sixers fan. But he’s also a big Ricky guy. So, with tickets right behind home plate to see an upcoming Phillies game in San Francisco, he emailed Spike Eskin in need of help. He could put whatever he wanted on his shirt and it’d be clearly visible on the TV broadcast.
And then this happened.
“FIRE BC,” “WHERE IS ERIC JR?” and “91” all in bold, black font, plus a shirt for good measure that said “I’m With Hinkie.”
On television! For an entire baseball game! A game that lasted almost three hours!
June 2nd, 4:51 PM EST: LeBron James cracks a joke
The NBA Finals are going on, remember? Well, during LeBron’s media availability, a reporter asked for his thoughts on a series of tweets that Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert had posted.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” LeBron said. “It was his account though, right?”
As the media laughed, LeBron motioned a “ba dum tss” with his fingers.
We were all just laughing with LeBron at the time, but looking back, this had to have been a genuinely powerful moment working against Colangelo’s job security. Remember, the Sixers were already planning on courting James as a free agent, and believed they had enough of a chance that they put all of their other free agency plans on hold for the entirety of the pivotal first day to see if they could woo him. James publicly mocking the person in charge of basketball operations must’ve helped seal Colangelo’s fate.
It seemed like Colangelo could be out at any minute now. Any second. Then there were two days of silence.
June 4th, 1:35 PM EST: Sixers hire Paul & Weiss firm to investigate
This firm was hired to get to the bottom of what the internet had already figured out. They reportedly had multiple interviews with Bryan and Barbara lasting several hours. But there was still no resolution. To say the locals were frustrated would be an understatement.
June 5th, 7:07 PM EST: Woj and Lowe report on where things stand
On an NBA Draft preview show on ESPN, there was a segment on the Colangelo saga, in which Woj and Lowe suggested we would have a resolution within 24-48 hours. Where the Sixers were struggling to make a decision, they said: whether or not Colangelo can be separated from the actions of his family members.
Okay, now let’s take a minute to think about that: whether or not BRYAN COLANGELO can be separated from his FAMILY.
Bryan Colangelo. Son of NBA royalty Jerry Colangelo. The same Bryan Colangelo who got to succeed his father as General Manager of the Phoenix Suns, and the same Bryan Colangelo whose father hijacked a team, forced out its decision-maker and immediately handed it over to his son.
June 6th, 1:03 PM EST: The Grayson Allen workout
Eventually, I lost belief that the Sixers were going to fire Colangelo. This is why: Allen, a prospect for the 2018 NBA Draft that was just a couple of weeks away, worked out for the Sixers, which is normal. But Allen’s workout, unlike most the Sixers hold, was unavailable to the media. And that is, in all likelihood, because of the presence of one Bryan Colangelo, whose whereabouts had been unknown until now. It was starting to sink in. They’re going to keep this guy.
June 7th, 11:52 AM: THE SIXERS AND BRYAN COLANGELO ARE PARTING WAYS
Where were you when the news came down? I was writing an essay in English class. As soon as I finished it (poorly, certainly), I did the whole “ask to go to the bathroom so you can look at your phone” thing. As soon as I looked, I saw the news: it was over.
Minutes later, Woj reported that the parting of ways would be “described as” a resignation, which is generally a pretty good tell that it is not actually a resignation. Then at noon came the Sixers’ statement, in which they and the law firm that famously “specialized in these types of things” finally bit the bullet. They called the situation “disappointing,” but thanked Colangelo for his previous efforts running the team -- all of the usual press release jargon that you’d expect.
But then there was something that none of us expected: Brett Brown was taking over the team. Brett, who was just about the only member of the organization with a modicum of public approval, was named the General Manager on an interim basis. It would be a “collaborative” front office that summer (they love to talk about this), a group that ownership eventually became pleased with and kept in place, elevating Elton Brand to General Manager though not consolidating all of the power in his hands.
June 7th, 12:08 PM EST: Kyle Neubeck reports on Jerry Colangelo’s influence over the process
Kyle Neubeck of PhillyVoice is a damn good reporter who wrote this soon after Bryan’s “resignation”:
“More than one person who spoke to PhillyVoice on the condition of anonymity suggested Jerry Colangelo tried to intervene on Bryan's behalf, threatening to interfere with club relationships around the league. The Sixers, aware of Colangelo's influence around the league and his connection to numerous agents and power brokers after decades of work in basketball, opted to move forward carefully in what team sources described as a chaotic, uncertain environment.”
Anyone surprised by this? Jerry had handed over leadership of an NBA team to his son twice, once essentially seizing the team via Skype in order to do so. Even to this day, the Colangelo Effect remains visible. Bryan’s last name afforded him a token interview for the Chicago Bulls’ General Manager position in April.
Josh Harris publicly denied the validity of Kyle’s report, which was supported by Lowe soon after. It would take less than two months, though, for the Sixers to announce that Jerry Colangelo would not return to his post as “special advisor,” doing so well before his contract was set to expire. You be the judge.
June 7th, 12:48 PM: Bryan Colangelo’s statement
This is the part where any sympathy you could have for Bryan goes out the window. In his statement, he begins by asserting “I had no knowledge or involvement in the Twitter activity conducted by my wife” and continues that he “vigorously [disputes] the allegation that [his] conduct was in any way reckless.” This is obviously wrong. Let’s give Bryan a benefit of the doubt that he does not deserve, just for a minute, and say that Bryan’s wife was the one doing all of the posts and he had absolutely zero clue. At the very least, he was in many ways reckless, most obviously providing private information to someone who was not reliable to maintain its secrecy. She didn’t just tweet uninformed proclamations about extremely sensitive information and happen to get all of it right.
But if you continue reading his statement, they will lose any remaining desire to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In the next paragraph, he completely throws his wife under the bus in a way that remains genuinely uncomfortable to read.
“Her actions were a seriously misguided effort to defend and support me, and while I recognize how inappropriate these actions were, she acted independently and without my knowledge or consent.”
He continues…
“Although I am not directly responsible for the actions, I regret this incident occurred and understand it has become a distraction for the team.”
Yikes, man! I don’t even feel compelled to explain what makes this so bad. It’s just right there. Good lord.
While we’re on the subject of how the fallout occurred, allow me to unequivocally state the following: I wholeheartedly believe that Bryan was, at the very least, Barbara’s partner in crime, if not the most frequent author of these tweets. I do not think Jerry Colangelo was involved in any way (this has become a common theory), but Bryan’s email being connected to the accounts just as his wife’s phone number was is difficult to ignore. Additionally, as someone who has read just about every burner account tweet that is public (as well as thousands that are not), I find there to be two distinct voices prevalent throughout the accounts. From mood, speech patterns, typing ability and similar tendencies, they simply do not read as tweets all crafted by the same person. And that much is clear from even just the few tweets featured in The Ringer’s initial story. Next time you think about Burnergate, remember this. By any reasonable evaluation, Bryan Colangelo had to be deserving of blame for more than just the crime of loose lips. Forever and always, pencil me in on the side of BC being at least as much of a culprit as the woman he repeatedly and excessively ripped to shreds -- if not more.
There are so many ways I could end a piece like this. Too many, even. I could continue harping on Colangelo’s selfishness. I could joke about the nature of the tweets. Hell, the first draft of this ended with me doing a parody of Bill Simmons. But the truth is that this story isn’t over. And it might not be for a long time -- not just because we still don’t know who Detrick’s source was. And not because Bryan is still out there claiming the investigation absolved him.
Burnergate did not start on May 29th, 2018. And it didn’t start when Bryan Colangelo and/or his wife downloaded the Twitter app on their phone, either.
Burnergate started on December 7th, 2015, with that ominously spontaneous press conference to announce the hiring of Jerry Colangelo. This organizational embarrassment for the ages started when the people at the top caved in, almost three years earlier. Harris, David Blitzer and co. let the NBA have its way. Hinkie was ousted, in came the Colangelos and along with them came complete and utter incompetence.
More than two years since Colangelo resigned in disgrace, the team is still showing their ass. And that is one butt you simply cannot censor.