Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Pperations Bryan Colangelo addressed the media on Monday after highly ranked prospect Brandon Ingram finished his workout with the team. Colangelo touched on a broad amount of important topics, including his thoughts on the Dario Saric situation, Joel Embiid's status for summer league and why Ben Simmons has yet to work out for the team. Both Head Coach Brett Brown and Colangelo traveled to turkey to see Saric play in the playoffs for Anadolu Efes.
"I saw a much improved player from what i saw three, four years ago when i first saw Dario"', said Colangelo Monday via CSNphilly.com "Hes gotten physically bigger, physically stronger. He's creating shots for himself with step-back dribbles, crossover dribbles, etc. And he's shooting the ball much, much better than what i remember and what i recall from three, four years ago."
Colangelo believes when Saric is ready to come over, he will be able to compete right away for a big role on this team.
"I think, at age 22, he's ready to make that jump. He's been playing professional basketball for a while, Coach Brown and I both expressed to him, and I think he understands that this would be a good time for him to come over for a lot of different reasons". [CSNphilly.com]
Saric has until July 17th to make a decision.
Colangelo also let us know what we kind of already knew 2014 first round pick Joel Embiid will not be playing in the 2016 NBA summer League but he will be with the team.
"It's the question of the day, so let me just put it to rest: he will not play summer league basketball" said Colangelo to CSNphilly.com "What he will do is join the team in Las Vegas, be with our coaches, be around that team environment again, which is very important that we start to acclimate him to being in that team environment again. He'll do some controlled scrimmaging, some controlled situations, drill work with everybody in Las Vegas."
Embiid has been doing various on court exercises during his rehab. While there is still no mathematical timeline for his return the team is still encouraged.
"He looks like he's getting more fluidity every day in terms of things he's doing on the court" Colangelo said. "He's done some things competitively with the two-on-two, three-on-three controlled situations, but again the word 'control' is the key there. i think everything's got to be done within the process that's been set forth and the timeline set forth by the doctors, and that's what we're adhering to very closely".
The 76ers will begin to training camp this September.
Colangelo also addressed the elephant in the room of why the presumed number one prospect, Ben Simmons, has yet to work out for anyone, including the team with the number one selection the Sixers.
"As of this moment, not yet, but we're still working on that" Colangelo said via CSNphilly.com .
While some fans seem to think this is Simmons again showing his disinterest in playing for the Sixers, Colangelo doesn't seem to concerned.
"It's not a red flag", Colangelo said. "Everybody deals with the draft process differently. Sometimes agents are involved in those decisions."
"Everything that we get, with respect to our intel as it relates to Ben, is he would very much like to be selected number one", Colangelo said. "I think we heard the same thing from Brandon today. It'll just be all part of the process as we look at making that final selection."
With the Headlines the Sixers continue to create we will all continue to "Stay Tuned".
