Sixers need to get Bryan Colangelo decision right as draft looms | David Murphy

Mikal Bridges was in Charlotte on Saturday. Khyri Thomas will be in Salt Lake City on Monday. Trae Young is scheduled to be in New York on Tuesday.

All three of these players fit a profile that should interest a team like the Sixers as it finalizes its scouting reports in advance of this year's NBA draft on June 21. But with the rest of the league busy scheduling private workouts with candidates, the organization is still trying to figure out who will be in charge of making their selections.

It's just another reminder of the unenviable straits the Sixers currently occupy as they attempt to reach some sort of resolution in the l'Affaire Colangelo. There probably isn't such a thing as an ideal time for a team to discover that its top basketball decision-maker is somehow connected to a series of Twitter accounts that have spent two years leaking proprietary information while throwing shade at players and coaches. But if inconvenience is a spectrum, the timing of the events that have enveloped the Sixers sits pretty close to the upper bound of the dial.

The obvious conclusion is that they must move fast, which has led a segment of the team's fan base to assume that ownership's ongoing radio silence on the matter is evidence that it is elbows deep in the process of mucking it all up. Such thinking is understandable, and we can't dismiss the potential that the concerns prove justified. Given the Sixers' less-than-stellar track record on the crisis management front, denying them the benefit of the doubt is not an irrational approach. At the same time, the worst thing they could do is make a panicky decision that compounds the difficulties they will face in moving forward. And when you consider the events of the last week and the timeline in which they unfolded, the current lack of resolution is hardly inexcusable.

>>READ MORE: Is Bryan Colangelo fighting for his job?

Barely five days have passed since The Ringer published its story suggesting team president Bryan Colangelo or someone close to him had been using a series of anonymous Twitter accounts to defend his decision-making regarding everything from trades to injuries to shirt collars. Two of those days were the weekend, and a third was essentially a travel day, as Colangelo flew back to Philadelphia from the pre-draft workouts he was attending on the west coast. Mix in the ongoing NBA Finals and the result is a hectic situation that was never going to lend itself to an immediate verdict.

Right now, the most important thing for the future of the roster is to arrive at a decision that sets the stage for a smooth transition to whatever lies next. Or, at least, as smooth a transition as is possible. Determining Colangelo's fate is only the first step in a complex series of dilemmas that the Sixers must confront, each one of which is intertwined with the other.

>>READ MORE: Guilty or not, perception matters for Bryan Colangelo and the Sixers

Barring the discovery of information that significantly conflicts with what has been made public, it is difficult to envision a scenario in which it makes sense for the Sixers to keep Colangelo at the top of their chain of command. This is an ends-based business that necessitates the maximization of every bit of potential advantage that is within a team's control. The simple truth is that Colangelo is now a liability, and it doesn't much matter whether it ends up being his fault.

If this was Danny Ainge or Jerry West or some other executive with a long track record of irreplaceable success, one could make an argument that the benefit of keeping him on outweighs any erosion of trust between the organization and its current or prospective players. But Colangelo has yet to show himself to be anything greater than a replacement-level executive. He is perfectly capable of recognizing and executing the obvious moves, but there are plenty of free-agent general managers who can offer that ability. It doesn't take a special sort of genius to come up with the best offer for the No. 1 pick in the draft, nor to use that No. 1 pick on the player whom the consensus regards as the draft's top player.

>>READ MORE: Burner accounts aren't new, but the content of these tweets is shocking

J.J. Redick did not sign with the Sixers because of shrewd scouting or inventive roster maneuvering. He signed because Colangelo offered him $23 million on a one-year deal — there are a lot of people on the face of this earth who can do that.

Granted, there's no guarantee that ownership will reach that same conclusion as it considers the results of its self-described "independent investigation." The Colangelo family is the oldest of old NBA money, and its patriarch currently occupies a role as a special adviser to the team. When Josh Harris and Co. brought Jerry Colangelo on board a few years ago, they essentially put him in charge of mapping out a transition away from the Sam Hinkie era. There is certainly a scenario in which that kind of political capital proves to be enough to save Bryan Colangelo from his seemingly inevitable fate.

At the same time, nothing about the scandal's current pace suggests that outcome is imminent. There are a lot of potential moving parts, from the language of Colangelo's contract to the Sixers' plan of succession. Every day that it lingers is one less day the Sixers have to address the offseason's biggest questions. But while it needs to happen fast, it also needs to happen right.