Philadelphia 76ers probe into GM's secret Twitter accounts

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The Philadelphia 76ers have recently been caught up in a swirl of constant big news announcements: the three-year contract extension with coach Brett Brown, the dating between the likely NBA Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons and Kendall Jenner and a bizarre story involving the team general manager Bryan Colangelo and his secret Twitter accounts.

US-based sports website The Ringer published an extensive report on May 29 night linking Colangelo to five different "burner" accounts, on which the Sixers' president of basketball operations criticized former and current players, the coaching staff, and NBA executives. According to the tweets, the account's owner also disclosed nonpublic team information about players' personal conditions.

The Ringer's anonymous source claimed to have used open-source data analysis to conduct the research, reaching the conclusion that the accounts "all have a pattern of likes, follows, and tweets which are extraordinarily similar."

Facing an outcry on Twitter, Colangelo said, "Like many of my colleagues in sports, I have used social media as a means to keep up with the news. While I have never posted anything whatsoever on social media, I have used the @Phila1234567 Twitter account referenced in this story to monitor our industry and other current events."

"This storyline is disturbing to me on many levels, as I am not familiar with any of the other accounts that have been brought to my attention, nor do I know who is behind them or what their motives may be in using them," he added.

Joel Embiid posted the following tweet shortly after the story broke. /Joel Embiid @ Twitter

Sixers' star player Joel Embiid appeared to be the subject of criticism among Colangelo's alleged account tweets. He responded, "I talked to him and he said that he didn't say that. He called me just to deny the story. I gotta believe him until proven otherwise. If true though, that would be really bad," as reported by ESPN.

The case of Colangelo is still under investigation and whether he will survive the scandal with his career intact is unclear.