By Brandon Apter, Sports Talk Philly Staff
The NBA Awards were on Monday night and two Philadelphia 76ers players took home honors with Ben Simmons being named Rookie of the Year and Amir Johnson receiving the NBA Hustle Award. Joel Embiid placed second in Defensive Player of the Year voting and was also revealed as the NBA Live 19 cover athlete. After the conclusion of the event, all of the voting results were released and former Sixers president of basketball operations, Bryan Colangelo, received votes for Executive of the Year.
Ultimately, the award was given to Houston's Daryl Morey, but Colangelo received one first place vote, a second place vote and third place vote, good for a seventh place finish. It's been just under two weeks since Colangelo and the Sixers organization parted ways following an internal probe that revealed Colangelo's wife to be the creator and poster behind multiple secret Twitter accounts. Although Colangelo said he was unaware of what she was doing, the information put out on Twitter was sensitive to the team and insulted former front office executives and current players.
Colangelo likely received a few votes because of his work done shortly after the trade deadline. The bench was an issue for the Sixers all season and Colangelo stood pat at the deadline, waiting for the buy-out market to populate and it ended up in Philadelphia signing veterans Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova. The two former Hawks contributed in a big way down the stretch for the Sixers, playing a large part in finishing with 52 wins and the first playoff berth since 2012.