Joel Embiid

In perhaps the most bizarre story yet in a drama-filled NBA season, Sixers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo has denied using several Twitter burner accounts to defend his reputation and to criticize Sixers players.

A compelling report from Ben Detrick of The Ringer connects five anonymous Twitter accounts to one another, suggesting that the accounts are strikingly similar in terms of content, tone, follows, and likes. As Detrick details, these accounts seemingly shared inside information on the 76ers and tipped team strategy — they also criticized current and former Sixers players and defended Colangelo’s track record with the franchise.

After Detrick sent an inquiry to the Sixers asking about two of the five accounts, Colangelo issued a statement claiming ownership of one of the accounts, which had never posted a tweet, denying knowledge of the other. Simultaneously, the three other accounts – which Detrick didn’t mention in his inquiry to the Sixers – went dark, switching from public to private.

The Ringer’s story is worth reading in full for many more details on the circumstantial evidence linking the accounts to Colangelo, as well as for the details on the tweets in question, which go after Joel Embiid, Markelle Fultz, Jahlil Okafor, and Nerlens Noel, along with former Sixers GM Sam Hinkie and current Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri, who replaced Colangelo in Toronto. Tweets from those anonymous accounts also repeatedly referred to an Okafor trade falling through after he failed a physical, and telegraphed the Sixers’ trade for 2017’s No. 1 pick several weeks before it happened.

While it’s impossible to say at this point that Colangelo is or isn’t behind the five accounts identified by The Ringer, it doesn’t look great for the Sixers’ president, considering the tweets “launched personal beefs, jealousies, [and] frustrations that he’s shared inside and outside [the] 76ers,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweets.

Still, Wojnarowski adds (via Twitter) that many executives around the league seem to believe Colangelo’s denials, since it’s hard to imagine a high-level executive would risk his job “in such a reckless manner” — it just doesn’t add up, Woj observes. According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe (via Twitter), the prevailing sentiment around the NBA – and within the Sixers organization – so far is confusion.

The controversy hasn’t gone unnoticed by Embiid, who was the subject of several negative tweets by the accounts in question. In one tweet tonight, Embiid pretended to accidentally post from his own account rather than from a burner profile, writing: “Joel told me that @samhinkie IS BETTER AND SMARTER THAN YOU @AlVic40117560 #BurnerAccount.” @AlVic40117560, one of the five accounts cited in The Ringer’s story, published a number of tweets criticizing Embiid, many of which the Sixers center “liked” tonight.

However, Embiid was more diplomatic in a statement to Wojnarowski, telling ESPN’s top reporter that he trusts Colangelo’s denials for now.

“I talked to him and he said that he didn’t say that,” Embiid said. “He called me just to deny the story. Gotta believe him until proven otherwise. If true though, that would be really bad.”