Bryan Colangelo cuts an impressive figure standing in the corner of the Air Canada Centre during games and in the boardroom. This is clearly a man who has never had difficulty selling himself to other people in nice suits.
And that was enough in his first sojourn with the Toronto Raptors, when just being the anti-Rob Babcock was good enough to get a five-year contract from an ownership group desperately in search of a smart American to tell it what it didn't know about basketball. Colangelo - the name, the Phoenix Suns pedigree, the whole Master of the NBA Universe thing. What wasn't to like? Shoot, even drafting Andrea Bargnani seemed far-sighted. What a bright young man this was, bringing in Europeans and all to a cosmopolitan city.
It all sounded good and even sort of worked until Hedo Turkoglu and Chris Bosh bolted, when it all went pear-shaped and looked as disoriented as Bargnani under his own basket - the man who put the duh in duh-fence. Suddenly, Colangelo had to go from selling himself to selling a vision based on a rebuild.
That the Raptors rewarded Colangelo with a two-year contract extension on Tuesday, adding a club option for a third season, is hardly a hearty clap on the back. They say when you negotiate a contract like this you are negotiating two things at the same time: terms of employment and terms of dismissal. With Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan attempting to sell its majority stake in team owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and the NBA likely headed for an off-season lockout (although unlike the NFL, indications are the labour climate has softened and obstacles might be resolved without any games lost), the sense here is that both sides viewed each other as their safest choice. This is an easy contract to get out of, in other words, either if you're a new majority owner or a guy who is unhappy with the new majority owner.
That's the way it's been since mid-season, and the truth is Colangelo should have had this extension done by now. Published reports say it was the Teachers representative on the MLSE board, Glen Silvestri, who was the holdout. And while there is a vocal segment of the Raptors fan base that would consider Silvestri heroic for his stance, it was clear that to the MLSE board that the devil they knew was better than the devil they weren't certain they'd be able to find.
Outgoing MLSE chief executive officer Richard Peddie referred to his general manager's ability to "connect the dots - both North American and internationally" in lauding Colangelo to The Globe and Mail's Robert MacLeod. Fair play to him. Beyond that, however, is what must surely be a recognition even on the part of the people who like things all tied up in nicely with neat bows that while a new GM to herald an era of new majority ownership and a new collective agreement seems the right way to go, the more prudent way is to have a GM who can be a bridge between a new agreement and possible new majority ownership - especially if that new majority ownership knows jack about the NBA.
Bringing in a new GM for the Raptors would have been tantamount to saying last season was a total waste, because there isn't a GM alive who would take over a job and proclaim he's ready to pick up somebody else's rebuilding job. That just doesn't happen. In other words, the Raptors would be back at square one as opposed to, um, square two. Or square 1-A, or wherever it is you find a team with a GM whose winning percentage in their employ is .446, whose marquee player is often as clueless as a rookie and seldom as engaged, and with the possibility of once again being under a head coach who may or may not be cut out for the job. But Colangelo sure looked good standing in that TV studio Tuesday, didn't he? The Man With A Plan, waiting for the NBA entry draft lottery balls to fall his way.