TORONTO – By the time the game started, Bryan Colangelo was ducking for cover.
Like the featured guest at a party, the sheer volume of handshakes, conversations, fist bumps and good wishes had washed over him like a wave. It was great to take it all in, but with the ball about to go up it was time to find somewhere quiet to watch.
No one had to show him where.
The longest-serving Toronto Raptors general manager in franchise history still knows every nook and cranny of the Air Canada Centre, the building he called home for seven seasons.
“It’s amazing how many people are still here, he said. “The ushers, the guys on the loading dock, the parking guys. A lot of familiar faces.”
He waited this long to come back because he wanted to return on his terms, as something current rather than something former. He wanted to have something to celebrate.
With one of the most enticing collections of young talent and draft picks of any franchise in the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers are a team with a future and Colangelo – their still-fresh president and general manager – is charged with shaping it.
But among the familiar faces that remain in Toronto three years after he was pushed out of his job by the now departed, then-MLSE chief executive officer Tim Leiweke, are the guts of the defending Eastern Conference NBA champions.
Raptors centre Jonas Valanciunas, who Colangelo drafted with the fifth pick in the 2011 draft, interrupts his pre-game warm-up to give a hearty man-hug to Colangelo. Terrence Ross, taken eighth in 2012, gives him a wave. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry – the cornerstones of the most successful run in Raptors history, acquired by Colangelo by draft and trade, respectively – have always held their former boss in warm regard, as does Dwane Casey, the head coach that Colangelo hired in advance of the 2011-12 season.
“Bryan’s an excellent basketball man. His DNA is basketball. It’s great to have him back in the league,” said Casey. “He’ll do a good job – fortunately for him, unfortunately for the rest of us – of building his team the right way and getting the right players in there. His eye for talent is written all over our program here.”
With the tools he has to work with, it might not be long before Colangelo’s new team is setting the bar for his old team to reach for.
For the moment, Colangelo and the 76ers are no threat. They’re too young and their best player – the phenomenal Joel Embiid – is still on a minutes restriction after missing two seasons with foot injuries and didn’t travel to Toronto for the Raptors’ 122-95 win.
Maybe Colangelo did his old team a solid: The 76ers are a semi-respectable 3-4 in Embiid’s last seven starts and are 1-5 when he doesn’t dress this season.
Almost as exciting a prospect is No. 1 overall pick Ben Simmons, who broke a bone in his foot just as training camp was beginning, but projects as an elite point-forward at 6-foot-10. He’ll likely be out for the season, however Colangelo is already anticipating his potential impact on a rebuilding program that may finally be turning the corner.
“We’re excited about what [Simmons] brings to the franchise and couple that with Embiid – assuming health going forward – that’s a great starting point,” said Colangelo. “Two transformational type players to anchor your build on.”
That’s all to come. But for one night it was all about looking back.
There were a lot of “hellos” to make and news to catch up on because apart from a brief, low-key cameo when the all-star game was in Toronto last February, Monday’s visit to the ACC by the Sixers was Colangelo’s first since his run with the Raptors ended.
He never left the city. Even now he’s commuting back-and-forth between Toronto and Philadelphia. His wife remains here while his daughter finishes high school. Their son finished high school in Toronto last June and is in his freshman season playing basketball for the University of Chicago.
Even after he was officially awarded the general manager’s job with the 76ers, Colangelo stayed away. As fate would have it, one of the first games Philadelphia played after Colangelo took over from Sam Hinkie – the embattled executive who turned the 76ers into a three-year experiment in extreme tanking – was in Toronto.
He flew into the city with the team, but didn’t come to the building.
“I didn’t want to turn it into a sideshow,” he said.
But after three years without work in the league he grew up in, he’s back on the main stage.
For a guy who built a reputation in Toronto for never seeing a roster he couldn’t turn over, he’s been patient in Philadelphia.
“I wanted to assess where they were doing things right, where things needed a little bit of attention,” said Colangelo. “I think we are very close to having all of that done. We got a lot of that done with a lot of key hires and most of the key hires have been made.”
He’s added some veterans to help his youngsters develop and changed out some fringe players who had been on the roster through the tanking.
“There’s a new mentality around the team,” he said. “We brought in eight or nine new players to get rid of as much of the losing thought process as possible, not that they were trying to lose, but … there were some limitations to how far they could go and it made it very difficult.”
There is still a lot of building to do. Colangelo may have stepped into an enviable situation but turning around a team that has won an average of 16 games a year the past three seasons will still take some heavy lifting.
But Colangelo couldn’t be more excited about the prospect. For the first time in a long time he had a reason to come to work at the ACC and smile. If he gets his work done right it won’t be long before that smile will come after a win.
