Good grief. What a doozy of a press conference Bryan Colanglo held today. It was a long, at times rambling, account of all things Sixers. Colangelo seemed anxious and fidgety at first, but settled in and even rebuffed a PR staffer and forged ahead, collars out, when they called for the last question. At one point he heard an Amber Alert go off and wished the victim well.

Colangelo announced that Ben Simmons would miss the remainder of the season and that Joel Embiid would miss at least four more games. He said the Sixers had discussed signing Ersan Ilyasova to essentially a one-year extension, but couldn’t make it work with his agent. Colangelo spoke for a solid 10 minutes before he even broached the Noel trade.

I’m exhausted from blogging the Sixers’ BS over the past few days, so here’s a brief breakdown, likely riddled with typos, of some of the doublespeak put forth by Colangelo that I feverishly transcribed like a Muppet masturbating at 2X speed:

 

On the return haul for Nerlens Noel: “Obviously very likely to be two seconds…[the first round pick] is heavily protected… we’re realists, and we’re looking at the value of the pick as two seconds.”

No shit. Thanks for being honest. Whoever wrote the press release, or sent out this Tweet, or updated the website, and called it, in no uncertain terms, a first round pick, wasn’t so forthcoming.

This is why, in a way, I feel bad for Colangelo. He’s working for a regime that seemingly values this sort of misinformation, but as the GM, he has to fall on the sword. I doubt the person who decided to call it a “first round pick” reports to Colangelo. This shit is on Scott O’Neil.

That said, Colangelo doesn’t seem intelligent and walked himself right into a bunch of statements that were obviously going to get ridiculed.

 

On the state of the team: “The plan, the vision is to build a successful and sustainable basketball program… the things that we go through on a daily basis, striving for success, striving for perfection, is unchanged. We are aspiring to win an NBA championship, and that means we’re building a program based on multi-positional talent, multi-positional skills, and championship DNA.”

Like I said earlier, some of that DNA wound up encrusted in a tissue in the trash can.

 

On all of the lights: “As we move forward, there’s a lot of bright things on the horizon. We’re experiencing a lot of brightness right now.”

Look over here– shiny thing. No, seriously, look over here. Just don’t ask me about the Noel deal or our mismanagement of injuries.

 

On yo-yo-ing Jahlil Okafor in and out of the lineup: “There was some conversation [about trading] Jahlil early, even some advanced discussions, even to the point where we took him out of a game… given that there was so much at stake.”

SO MUCH AT STAKE. That is one interpretation for why they left Okafor home. The other comes from The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor, who says it was a ploy to generate demand for Okafor. Why do I feel like… there was nothing at all at stake?

 

On his eventual epitaph: “I’ve often said I wouldn’t make a bad deal, but yesterday I made the best deal that was available to us.”

That… does not inspire confidence in the deal. And it gets to the crux of the problem with the Noel trade– there wasn’t a good deal to be had, and there was no need to trade him yesterday. Sure, Colangelo explained that he didn’t think being forced to match an offer to Noel this offseason was the right move (I’ll disagree), but the fact remains that the Sixers had the flexibility to hold onto him and move him at a later date if they had to, presumably with higher demand.

 

More: “I think deal that was made yesterday the best deal that was available.”

Tallest midget in the circus deal.™

 

On the Sixers’ awful communication of injuries: “There’s such a broad spectrum of healing patterns in the human body. Everybody’s different. Genetics. Rest. Exercise. Diet. Everything plays a factor here. There’s genetic things that change the healing pattern of people.”

Did I ramble on enough for you to forget the question?

Jim: That is true for most cases, but these are 1) world-class athletes, 2) world-class doctors, 3) YOU SAID IT WAS FUCKING HEALED.

 

On calling Simmons’ last MRI the “final scan“: “When we said final scan, I should have said I’m hopeful this is the final scan.”

Can I get a mulligan?

 

On whether the previous scan showed progress: “I don’t know how to define progress to a scan, only that the [current] scan hasn’t shown full healing… it’s safe to say there was progress, but I can’t assess how much progress or to what degree.”

Sixers tweet on January 24, a day after the scan: “Simmons had planned scan in NY yesterday. Recovery progressing as expected, still no timetable for return to play.”

Seemed able to define it then.

 

More: “What I’ve been told is that it does continue… to I guess progress.”

Swell!

 

On regrets: “I regret one thing– that when we talked about day-to-day progression… that following the second injury… we should have just said out indefinitely, even though the treatment was still day-to-day. But the fact that there was still uncertainty, I’ll own that…”

Oh, wow, contrition. Tha..

“… the 2-3 week comment – I think I know where that came from – there was a lot of discussion, and despite the fact that we were saying day-to-day treatment and evaluation, 2-3 weeks may have been mentioned as a possible, as a possible… to say that publicly might not have been the best thing at the time, because I’ve also been told it could be 4-6 weeks for a bone bruise to heal… sometimes a bone bruise will stay on scan for 6-8 weeks.”

 

On most definitely not deceiving fans: “But there’s never been any effort to deceive fans, to mislead fans… everything is explainable. But injuries are unpredictable is the best way I can describe them.”

Unpredictable is one thing. Lying about the results of MRIs is another.

 

On the market for Jahlil Okafor: “Because of his rookie scale contract and because of the value of having two more years vs. being a restricted free agent [like Noel], the market for him was much more broad and arguably much more broad and conducive to doing something, but the right deal didn’t present itself, so we did not make that deal.”

Thanks, Confucius. That’s deep. Also, it doesn’t make any sense. The market for Okafor is the offer. If there’s no offer, then there’s no market. And you can’t make the deal, because it didn’t exist!

 

More: “The value proposition of having a rookie scale contract and two years left is what drives that… so once the deal was there for Nerlens, it made it a little more difficult to transition to trading Jahlil, but the right deal never presented itself.”

Yeah, I have no idea either.

 

On if he could see how fans felt misled about Embiid’s injury: “Yeah, I surely can see. But again, I’m gonna chalk that up to a frustrated young man who heard something different than he heard a week earlier… who thought he might play Friday night.”

Yep, that was Colangelo spinning the fans-being-misled question onto Embiid.

 

On if it was a mistake: “It was our mistake to put out day-to-day as opposed to out indefinitely. That mistake will not be made again. There’s no deceit… it’s quite simple, injuries are a hard thing to manage… you’re talking about complex injuries… high-level performers, I’m calling them our stars.”

 

On Simmons’ scans: “I don’t know that I could’ve [then] added more than we’re gonna revisit in a month, but I’m saying that now.”

I need a beer.