TORONTO – Bryan Colangelo hasn’t been back at the Air Canada Centre for a basketball game since he chose to resign from the Toronto Raptors rather than stay on as president of something or other after Masai Ujiri was hired to do his job in the summer of 2013.
Tuesday night seemed like the obvious opportunity to make his return. Newly hired as the Philadelphia 76ers general manager, wouldn’t you know, his new team was playing his old team in the second-last game of the season for two franchises at opposite ends of the Atlantic Division.
Turns out Colangelo didn’t make it down from his home in Yorkville, where he’s remained in his three years outside the NBA orbit.
“Been swamped all day,” he texted.
He didn’t miss much. The Raptors won 120-98 to improve to 55-24, putting a nice bow on the most successful season of basketball ever seen at the ACC, but the biggest victory of all was that they got through the 48 minutes without a sprained ankle, something they can only hope to repeat in the season finale in Brooklyn Wednesday night.
Jonas Valanciunas led them with 17 points and 11 rebounds. The 76ers got 13 points from Canadian national team member Nik Stauskas, eight of them coming on some impressive dunks, not normally the specialty for the kid who earned his way into the NBA on the strength of his potential as a three-point shooter.
Otherwise, the game was devoid of significance. The Raptors are focussed on the playoffs – they’ll be playing Indiana after the Detroit Pistons lost to the Miami Heat, finalizing the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture – and the 76ers can only focus on the future.
A lot of foreheads have been wrinkled in recent years about teams tanking seasons or portions of seasons to secure draft picks. Nearly equal proof that the NBA regular season lacks value is the weeks of relatively meaningless basketball played by teams like the Raptors, whose playoff destiny has been relatively assured since mid-March.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said the plan heading into the game was for his club to be operating at something close to all systems go against the 76ers, now 10-71 on the season.
But midway through the first quarter he had a lineup featuring Delon Wright, Norman Powell, DeMarre Carroll, Lucas Nogueira and Luis Scola, who at one point was telling everyone where to go on the floor, as might be expected.
Surprisingly things worked pretty well initially, with the Raptors taking a 32-23 lead after 12 minutes. But things got pretty ragged after that as the 76ers put up 38 points on the Raptors in the second quarter.
Toronto was trailing by six at the half but righted things with a starter-driven 32-13 run in the third quarter — and that was the game.
But the most interesting thing Colangelo would have seen at the ACC – or anyone curious about what lies ahead for the 76ers after three years of the most determined tank job ever seen in the NBA, or anywhere – was the sight of Joel Embiid shooting three-pointers while killing time before the game.
If there is a symbol of the frustration and hope that 76ers fans feel and share it’s the former Kansas star who was drafted third overall in 2013 – in the early days of since departed 76ers GM Sam Hinkie’s vaunted “process” – even though he would require surgery on his foot that cost him his rookie season. Another foot surgery cost him his second season, and at this point the smart money would have to be on him turning into the next Greg Oden rather than a bigger, stronger, Karl-Anthony Towns.
But seeing Embiid — all 7-foot-2, 280 pounds of him — casually dropping triples is as good a reason as any to presume that Colangelo may be stepping into one of the best opportunities in the NBA.
As one 76ers staffer said while watching Embiid before the game: “If that guy gets going, things can change in a hurry.”
Colangelo has never been known for his patience. His line since taking over the job has been “accelerate the process.”
If he’s successful the Eastern Conference could look very different in a short period of time, a development Ujiri and the Raptors will need to monitor if they hope to maintain their status as a top-four team in the conference long into the future.
The Milwaukee Bucks have stockpiled some impressive young talent and in Giannis Antetokounmpo have a budding superstar. The Boston Celtics may be the team that can turn the corner from good to great fastest. They could have enough cap room this summer to sign two max free agents to a team already on the cusp of 50 wins and they will have the rights to the Brooklyn Nets’ first-round picks for the next three years.
The 76ers have a deep hole to climb out of, but they have plenty of shovels, ladders and flashlights for Colangelo to use.
At the top of the list is $60 million of cap space they can either sign free agents with or – more likely – use to trade for players currently under contract. As well, they’ll have the best chance to win the top overall pick in the draft lottery this summer along with two other first-round picks. If the ping-pong balls bounce right and the Los Angeles Lakers slip out of the top-three the 76ers would get that pick too.
“Bryan’s got a lot of tools,” said one NBA executive.
It will be interesting to see how all that affects the Raptors. Colangelo drafted Valanciunas, Terrence Ross and DeMar DeRozan and traded for Kyle Lowry, who is from Philadelphia, it’s worth pointing out.
You can bet some of his first phone calls will be made to his old team seeing if there is any business to be done.
He’ll be receiving his share of calls, too, as every NBA team looking to create more room under the salary cap to make their own run at a free agent or two will have his number on their favourite lists.
It just so happened that Colangelo’s new team played their first road game of his tenure in his old home arena. For now they are franchises at opposite ends of the NBA’s development curve, but if he has his way, it won’t be for long.
Colangelo didn’t make the trip down Bay Street, but you know he was watching.
