As the curtains draw on Bryan Colangelo’s tenure with the Toronto Raptors, fans and media alike are quick to denounce the Chicago native.
Celebration has erupted across Raptor Nation as they neuter a man they once viewed as their savior. In just another case, of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ in today’s growing insatiable hunger for instant results, Colangelo has become the Patsy for this Raptor organization. Taking the brunt, if not all the blame, for the team’s never-ending list of failures dating back to before Colangelo was ever a part of this merry band of conmen, P.R shapeshifters, and season ticket propaganda ‘marketing’ experts.
The media has taken like vultures eagerly pecking at Colangelo’s corpse, like a Canadian child who just opened his very first Kraft dinner. He’s portrayed as a chump, who didn’t have the faintest idea of what he was doing except signing any European with passable Visa credentials. A stubborn captain who put the whole responsibility of a franchise on the deck of an incompetent and leaky S.S Bargnani. A seemingly unmotivated young 7′ footer from Italy. They snicker about his former assistant Masai Ujiri (who Colangelo clashed with on a number of occasions) taking the so-called ‘mighty’ Raptor crown as his own.
But was it truly all Colangelo’s fault? Is he truly to blame for the Raptors lack of success for over a decade, and the epitome of a treadmill team? Or was the environment itself, Canada per say and its lack of adoration by the NBA’s best, the cause of a lackluster foundation?
Murphy’s Colangelo’s Law
Bryan Colangelo. From Executive of the Year, to the bottom of the NBA’s trash heap in terms of perception. What happened? How did everything go quite so wrong? Murphy’s Law, became a real-life spectacle in the city of Toronto. We all witnessed a man go from the best man for the job, a league prize, to no-direction Colangelo. But what direction can you have, when all your best crew abandoned ship? And no new sailors want to cross the ocean to help you rebuild?
Thanks for reading the introduction to this multi-part series detailing Bryan Colangelo’s journey from top guy to ‘he’s the GM why’? In Part 2, we’ll be looking at the The Early Years, Winning Executive of the Year, and Bryan’s attempt at building a Culture of Success.
Love Him or Hate Him: Bryan Colangelo Believed in Something
Written by Nir Regev