Toronto Raptors: Three questions that emerge from burner gate

July 8, 2009 Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo (L) looks at Andrea Bargnani during a press conference at Air Canada Centre to announce his contract extension. The Toronto Raptors have re-signed former No. 1 pick to a five-year, $50-million contract extension. Toronto Star/Andrew Wallace (Photo by Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
July 8, 2009 Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo (L) looks at Andrea Bargnani during a press conference at Air Canada Centre to announce his contract extension. The Toronto Raptors have re-signed former No. 1 pick to a five-year, $50-million contract extension. Toronto Star/Andrew Wallace (Photo by Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

It’s hard to fathom but the rumours swirling in the City of Brotherly Love might have some substance to them and could have ramifications around the league including for the Toronto Raptors.

As first reported by Ben Detrick of The Ringer, former Toronto Raptors President and GM, two-time Executive of the Year, and current managing general of The Process, Bryan Colangelo, is being investigated for potentially setting up five so-called burner Twitter accounts.

While the story is currently not yet confirmed and still developing, The Ringer has been investigating claims since February after receiving a tip that Colangelo may have been using these accounts to criticize current and former players, former 76’ers GM Sam Hinkie as well as Toronto Raptors GM Masai Ujiri, through anonymous tweets.

Most importantly, the Ringer’s report also states, that whoever was tweeting from these accounts also released confidential information about transactions and player injury reports.

The Toronto Connection

The accounts also had some harsh words for Masai Ujiri wondering why “nothing seems to fall on Masai’s shoulders” and “they are falling apart! Because nothing was done to make them a better team.”

Colangelo has denied that he ever sent critical tweets about his players, contemporaries or predecessors.

Sentiment across the league seems to be cautiously supportive of Colangelo. Former MLSE  boss Richard Peddie publicly supported the former Raptors chief saying to Michael Grange in a recent interview, “I sure didn’t see any behaviour like this in the time we worked together.”

One of the players criticized by a burner account was Joel Embiid. When contacted by Colangelo assuring him that the story was false, Embiid explained to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:

If there’s smoke, might there be fire?

As Detrick’s source states, “There are too many similarities, too many oddities for us to dismiss this immediately. (The accounts) all have a pattern of likes, follows, and tweets which are EXTRAORDINARILY similar.”

There are connections and commonalities between Colangelo and the burner accounts that make this hard to look the other way. These connections include Toronto and Canadian youth basketball as well as writers and reporters who cover the Toronto Raptors.

Colangelo has admitted that one of the accounts is his. Three of the accounts were coincidentally shut down after Detrick inquired to the Sixers about the other two accounts. It may be hard to believe that this is just happen chance.

What Next?

Recently, reporting by Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe points out that the investigation may now be focusing on his wife, Barbara Bottini. If this proves to be true, it can still be extremely damaging to Colangelo.

Whether it is Colangelo or his wife, this social media could spell the end of Colangelo’s reign in Philly as well as his career in the NBA for the foreseeable future. If it isn’t Colangelo or someone connected to him, then this story might get even more compelling.

Either way, here are just three questions that emerge from Burner Gate

Can this lead to a 76’ers implosion and therefore benefit the Raptors?

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Raptor fans are salivating at the idea that this may lead to real problems for the current 76’ers, a team the Raptors will be competing against next year.

But, on the floor, the answer is probably no. Raptor fans are smart enough to know that this is a player’s league and replacing a GM that has only been there a short while, will not be anything more than a speed bump for the existing players. And if there is truth to this, it may even bring the locker room closer together.

Might this affect free agency this off-season?

This might be a bit trickier for the 76’ers. There are several key free agents this off-season including LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, that may have been looking at Philadelphia as a possible destination. This was going to be Colangelo’s summer. He now has a bigger problem. He has to convince any possible free agents that he wasn’t burning his current and former players. This is a real problem for Philadelphia and in this sense might be beneficial for Toronto.

Did Bryan Colangelo run burner accounts while he was running the Raptors?

It’s possible. However, burner accounts, in of themselves, are not illegal nor are they something that you can be fired for using. So, even if he did, it’s what he did with them that counts the most.

Next: Individual grades for each Raptor this season

There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that points to Colangelo using burner accounts in Toronto to criticize players, staff or anyone else for that matter. However, as this story unfolds, there may be more to Colangelo than we may have thought.