{"id":823644,"date":"2026-07-25T21:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T21:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823644\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T21:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T21:04:13","slug":"lebron-james-to-the-sixers-how-does-this-impact-our-uva-basketball-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823644\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James to the Sixers: How does this impact our UVA Basketball guys?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/lebron-james.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img data-no-lazy=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/lebron-james.jpg\" alt=\"lebron james\" width=\"555\" height=\"312\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><\/a>LeBron James. Photo: \u00a9 A.Ricardo\/ Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James made yet another decision, this one, he swears, being the final one, taking him to Philadelphia to play for the 76ers, who haven\u2019t won an NBA title since the days of Dr. J.<\/p>\n<p>As you might expect from me, the only thing I really care about with the LBJ news is, how does it affect those in the world of UVA Basketball?<\/p>\n<p>Directly, not at all, is the first answer: we don\u2019t have any UVA Hoops alums on the Sixers roster, nor in the ownership group or front office staff.<\/p>\n<p>Indirectly<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hoos: NBA Draft advisor Tony Bennett<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers lost James for $4 million a year, so, it wasn\u2019t about the money \u2013 it was him thinking he couldn\u2019t win in LA in the next two years, his age-42 and age-43 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN 2026-2027 power ranking: 11<br \/>\nThe Athletic 2026-2027 power ranking: 7<\/p>\n<p>Boston Celtics<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hoos: backup forward Sam Hauser, maybe (?) forward Trey Murphy III <\/p>\n<p>TM3 to Boston has been rumored for a while, and the talk is heating up with LBJ landing in Philly.<\/p>\n<p>Add Murphy (2025-2026 in New Orleans: 21.5 ppg, 5.7 rebounds\/g, 3.8 assists\/g, 47.0% FG, 37.9% 3FG) to the Boston rotation, and Cs fans will forget about the trade of Jaylen Brown to the Sixers.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN 2026-2027 power ranking: 9<br \/>\nThe Athletic 2026-2027 power ranking: 11<\/p>\n<p>Indiana Pacers<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hoos: head coach Rick Carlisle, assistant coach Jenny Boucek, backup center Jay Huff<\/p>\n<p>The Pacers took a gap year in 2025-2026 after losing star Tyrese Haliburton in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d taken out the New York Knicks, who went on to win the 2026 NBA championship, to get to the 2025 Finals.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN 2026-2027 power ranking: 15<br \/>\nThe Athletic 2026-2027 power ranking: 15<\/p>\n<p>The rest<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Dunn (Phoenix Suns): LBJ is back East, but San Antonio and OKC are still in the West.<br \/>\nAnthony Gill (Washington Wizards): The Wiz will at least be more entertaining to watch when they lose with Trae Young, Anthony Davis and #1 overall pick AJ Dybantsa in town.<br \/>\nDe\u2019Andre Hunter (Sacramento Kings): Sacramento is all you need to know there.<br \/>\nTy Jerome (Memphis Grizzlies): I suspect that Ty will begin the 2026-2027 season somewhere else, given that Memphis is in teardown mode.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN\/The Athletic power rankings for those teams:<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix: 19\/17<br \/>\nWashington: 22\/24<br \/>\nMemphis: 26\/28<br \/>\nSacramento: 30\/26<\/p>\n<p>Multimedia<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James. Photo: \u00a9 A.Ricardo\/ Shutterstock.com LeBron James made yet another decision, this one, he swears, being the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,306238,85,306239],"class_list":["post-823644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-go-hoos","tag-sports","tag-uva-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823644","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=823644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}