Jaylen Brown in a trade<\/a> with the Boston Celtics. It has an elite guard in Tyrese Maxey, and Joel Embiid \u2014 when healthy \u2014 is almost unstoppable.<\/p>\nIt has a rising star in VJ Edgecombe, and a coach in Nick Nurse (who turned 59 on Friday, so we can assume his birthday wish has already come true) who already has a championship ring on his finger from his stint in Toronto.<\/p>\n
In other words, it more than meets James\u2019 criteria. On paper, if everything went right even before Friday\u2019s news, the 76ers were already primed to be a contender.<\/p>\n
Now, with James, anything less than contention would be utter failure. And while some will say he\u2019s ring-chasing, it\u2019s hard for that argument to hold up considering that Philadelphia hasn\u2019t won a title since 1983.<\/p>\n
Regardless, this task for James won\u2019t be easy. The Eastern Conference is absolutely loaded.<\/p>\n
The NBA champion Knicks play 100 miles away from Philly, and that rivalry will somehow get even hotter now. If the 76ers go to New York for opening night, when the Knicks get their first championship rings in 53 years, those crazy prices for games at Madison Square Garden for the NBA Finals might seem like pocket change.<\/p>\n
And the East is much more than just the Knicks. Detroit won 60 games last season. Cleveland will be in the mix. Miami added Giannis Antetokounmpo; the Heat were waiting to see what James would decide and now will look to add more shooting and backcourt help.<\/p>\n
And if this past season was any indication, even though trading Brown was puzzling to some, it would be foolish to count Boston out of anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my last decision,\u201d James wrote. \u201cI\u2019m not going for money. I\u2019m not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point?\u201d<\/p>\n
A serious challenge awaits<\/p>\n
There will be growing pains.<\/p>\n
Miami started 9-8 in James\u2019 first season with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. Philadelphia is starting over in many ways; it\u2019s not as simple as it sounds to just plug Brown and James into the starting lineup for Paul George and Kelly Oubre Jr. Brown, James, Embiid and Maxey will have to figure it out, and it will take time.<\/p>\n
There will be losses. Trust the process, as they say in Philadelphia. It will be a process.<\/p>\n
But if they figure it out \u2026<\/p>\n
James could play quarterback and just spread the ball around all day if he wants. He can still fill a stat sheet like almost nobody else. He and Embiid won Olympic gold together. Maxey is just coming into his own. Brown is going to have a chip on his shoulder the size of the Liberty Bell to prove the naysayers from Boston wrong. If this works, it\u2019s going to be spectacular. If it doesn\u2019t, it\u2019ll be a spectacular flameout. There is no in-between.<\/p>\n
So, now the NBA schedule can be finished. It was the question \u2014 where will LeBron go? \u2014 that the whole league was asking, and with all respect to Allen Iverson\u2019s nickname, Philly was The Answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James had other good options It could have been Cleveland. It could have been Miami. Golden State appeared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7896,590,9688,85],"class_list":["post-821954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}