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Shoutout Mike Gansey, the New King of Philadelphia
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Being an NBA GM is not a hard thing. You sign your contract, make two franchise-altering moves to drastically alter the trajectory of your team and improve your championship odds by 600% in less than two months of being on the job, and pick up your paycheck every other Friday.
Easy peasy. Not much too it, gang.
Philadelphia, rejoice, for you have a new king, and his name is Mike Gansey.
Has any newly hired general manager in any sport EVER made two completely franchise-altering transactions to immensely improve the odds of winning a championship, increase interest in a once flatlined team, and brought in perhaps the greatest to ever play the sport in less than two months on the job?
No, because nobody else is Mike Gansey.
Mike Gansey signed with the 76ers as the team’s President of Basketball Operations on June 2nd, 2026. Since then, he’s done the following:
- Traded the roided-up corpse of Paul George for Jaylen Brown, an MVP candidate entering his prime.
- Drafted Labaron Philon Jr. from Alabama after he slipped to 22nd overall in the NBA draft
- Signed Dean Wade from Cleveland, a sharp-shooting big man who plays tenacious defense, the type of player that has HOUNDED the 76ers for as long as I can remember
- Signed Anfernee Simons to immediately improve bench scoring after relying on Quentin Grimes, who played more scared in the playoffs against the Knicks than me watching The Gate at a sleepover when I was 9 years old
- Oh yeah, signed LeBron James to a two-year, $8 million deal
Ho hum. It’s just that simple folks.
Do you know what Daryl Morey did in his first month on the job? He traded Josh Richardson for Seth Curry, signed Dwight Howard, and acquired Danny Green. Hey, all positive moves, to be fair, and during a different time of the season….but Curry, Green and Howard ain’t Brown and LeBron.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Gansey has completely reinvigorated Philadelphia’s interest in a team that we were all swearing off for dead just two months ago. I’ve sworn off this team more times than WIP has sworn off Jalen Hurts, but now my man Gansey has brought the 76ers back from light with a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, Mia Wallace style.
It’s hard to even possibly fathom what happened in these last two months. We went from fretting over the possibility of breaking this team down to its struts and rebuilding around Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe to becoming the odds on favorite to win the Eastern Conference.
We went from the flotsam and jetsam of whatever cobbled together starting five would be next season to a starting five of Maxey, Edgecombe, Brown, James, and Embiid, with a COMPETENT, well-put together bench full of young guys who can provide plenty of energy.
In less than two months Gansey has given this franchise a completely new direction, a completely new identity, and a team that could rival the Philadelphia Eagles in terms of fan interest for the 2026-27 season.
Sure some people may bitch about the moves ::cough:: WIP ::cough cough:: and whine about the potential for LeBron James to disrupt the year, but it doesn’t matter. The 76ers are far more than relevant again, a threat to everyone else in the NBA, and have the best chance they’ve potentially ever had to win an NBA championship since Dr. J laced them up in the Spectrum.
And who do we have to thank for it? Mike Gansey, the new king of Philadelphia.
I have no merits or accomplishments worth noting. Founder of Philadelphia's most trusted sports blog, The Coggin Toboggan. Everything I have ever written up until this very moment has been utter garbage.