Respect to LeBron James. Because Philly was the hard one.
The tough call. The biggest potential for failure at the end of a brilliant career.
And yet, James walked right through the door, toward one of the NBA’s toughest and most knowledgeable fanbases; toward an infamous media contingent that, with all due respect to my man Dan Woike and his cohorts, is a little harder on the local teams than what James has dealt with in L.A. the last eight years; toward the hoops history of a city that’s waited 43 years for another pro basketball title; toward the comparisons with the Eagles, who’ve won two Super Bowls in the last decade; toward Joel Embiid’s tortured injury, and the ghosts of Iverson and Barkley and the Doctor.
That is not to say James opting for the Philadelphia 76ers doesn’t make sense in terms of basketball. It isn’t a perfect fit, but Philly checks a lot of boxes that should make sense to a 41-year-old entering his 24th NBA season.
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Yes, James wanted to win. His camp made sure to repeat that talking point over and over Friday. But James could have won in Cleveland alongside Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley. He certainly could have won again in Miami, playing again for Erik Spoelstra — and, now, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo. But James chose the challenge of winning in the Illadelph, which chews up and spits out pretenders and talented players who don’t fit the city’s work ethic or its self-proclaimed credo of toughest guys on the block.
It is incredible that, 10 weeks after getting their doors blown off in an(other) embarrassing playoff series loss to the New York Knicks, the 76ers have added James and Jaylen Brown and completely reset the expectations for the franchise. Such big swings are not new in Philadelphia. Big city, big mouths, big expectations.
Bryce Harper coming to the Phillies in 2018 was a game-changer for that franchise. So, too, was the arrival of the Terrell Owens circus with the Eagles in 2004. But this has a different texture, in large part because of the four decades the 76ers have toiled, in vain, to win it all again.
James warps the landscape around him, bends everything to his will and talents. He’s won at least one championship everywhere he’s been. One will do in Philadelphia.
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To be sure, James will have help. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are one of the league’s best young backcourts; Maxey and James are both Rich Paul clients and know each other well. Embiid is hurt a lot, usually at the worst possible time. But don’t get it twisted: He can still hoop, as he showed in Philly’s comeback first-round playoff series win over the Boston Celtics. And, not unimportantly, as he showed in the 2024 Olympics, when he played exactly one game of consequence for the U.S. team: the semifinal win against Nikola Jokić and Serbia, when Embiid helped James and Stephen Curry claw back from a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit.
But the difference-maker for Philly — of this, there is no doubt — is the presence of Brown, acquired from Boston in a trade that will be discussed for decades.
The advanced stats crowd may not think much of Brown. James, the guy with four NBA titles, for three different teams, who is also the league’s all-time leading scorer, a 21-time all-NBA selection and a 22-time All-Star, holds Brown in higher esteem. Brown had to go through some tough times in Boston before he and Jayson Tatum finally delivered a championship to one of the league’s top two most storied franchises in 2024 — when Brown won NBA Finals MVP.
In the rarefied air where players like James reside, that gets your attention.
“There’s no question, Jaylen Brown going to the Sixers changed them from a contending team to a championship-caliber team,” a league source with knowledge of James’ thinking,granted anonymity to speak freely, said Friday afternoon.
James did indeed contemplate retirement after the Lakers were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round. But he felt “incomplete,” the source said, in assessing the season. He’d been incredible in L.A.’s first-round upset of the Houston Rockets, playing without Luka Dončić for the whole series and with Austin Reaves for just 64 total minutes in six games. But James also saw that he’d been able to be a supporting cast member in the regular season, when Dončić was healthy and at his best, and Reaves became a dependable second scoring option.
He could still play. But did he still want to do the grunt work — the lifting and shooting drills, and the running and the drudgery of getting ready to play again?
So he took his time to think about it.
Miami was real. Even though Pat Riley had napalmed the bridge back for James when he was a free agent in 2014 by all but calling James a coward if he didn’t re-sign with the Heat, James still knew and respected the Heat’s relentless pursuit of championships. Playing with Antetokounmpo and Adebayo, and again for Spoelstra, had real appeal, even if the frontcourt fit was a little clunky.
The Cavaliers, obviously, carried both an on-court path to success behind Mitchell, Mobley and James Harden, and the powerful pull of nostalgia for James to end his career where it began, less than an hour from his beloved Akron, in a third and final stint with the Cavs. He knew the landscape of Cleveland and felt comfortable and at home there. No one would have begrudged him taking the road most traveled.
But Philly, post-Brown, had a lot to offer.
As late as Thursday evening, “We knew we were in the hunt. We knew we were real,” said a team source who was granted anonymity to discuss negotiations between James and the 76ers.
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But the Sixers didn’t know for sure. No one did. James didn’t seek advice from his longtime circle of most trusted advisers on where he should go. They didn’t push it. All the contending teams, including the long-shot Minnesota Timberwolves, were kept at a respectable distance as James made the final call Friday morning.
Embiid and Maxey had both made pitches to James over the last couple of weeks. Paul has a strong relationship with David Blitzer, Josh Harris’ partner in the parent company that owns the 76ers and New Jersey Devils and a minority stake in the Premier League’s Crystal Palace F.C.
And James had run into Harris, the 76ers’ governor, at a VIP event during Fanatics Fest in New York last week. Harris, understanding that everyone in Philly, with a couple of notable, thought-out exceptions, was giving James his space, made a brief pitch, saying that he’d be welcomed with open arms if he came to town. James, the team source said, was cordial and polite with Harris but did nothing to tip his hand about his intentions.
Everyone, more or less, found out together.
Perhaps James knew all along. Maybe he didn’t know until Friday morning. But he is a student of the game. Surely, he knew both the potential for failure and success were, and are, greater in Philadelphia than any of the other teams on his list.
Surely, he knew that he is one of just four players — Robert Horry, Danny Green and John Salley are the others — to win championships with three different teams. No doubt, James understands that if he pulls this off, and there’s a parade down Broad Street next June, and he gets a fifth ring, which would get him on the line with Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, that his case for being the greatest player in NBA history would receive a turbo boost.
And he’d be right.
