announced in July<\/a> that he had signed a two-year, $8m deal with the 76ers, ending weeks of speculation over where the four-time NBA champion would land as a free agent after eight seasons and one title with the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old superstar, entering a record-extending 24th NBA season, won two titles with Miami, another with Cleveland and a fourth with the Lakers, and is aiming to help the Sixers win their first title since Julius Erving led the club to the crown 43 years ago.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s game marked his first chance to line up alongside new teammates Joel Embiid, VJ Edgecombe, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown \u2013 a new arrival from the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt a little different,\u201d James said. \u201cObviously, just wearing a new uniform, but the game is the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still trying to put each other in a position to be successful and complement each other the best way we can out on the floor,\u201d he added. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to take some time. Tonight was a good sample size for us to build on.\u201d<\/p>\n
James scored 10 points, connecting on his lone shot from the floor and making all eight of his free-throw attempts. He added four rebounds, five assists and a steal in 18:04 minutes in the first half.<\/p>\n
Brown led all scorers with 18 points. Julius Randle had 14 for the Nets, who outscored the Sixers 37-23 in the third quarter to take control.<\/p>\n
LeBron James captures NBA spotlight again<\/p>\n
But all eyes were on James, starting with his first signature pre-game chalk-toss in a 76ers uniform.<\/p>\n
James smoothly directed the Sixers\u2019 offence in his time on the floor, making all five of his assists in the first quarter and combining effectively with Maxey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there was some really good things happening, you know, right off the bat,\u201d 76ers coach Nick Nurse said after seeing his starters together for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bunch of back cuts and good passing, etc, there were segments where obviously we turned the ball over a lot \u2026 just the little clunky segments, too. But, again, it\u2019s preseason, first time they\u2019re together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you look at it as what\u2019s good and what are the learning experiences, things that we can improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 76ers have two more preseason games, both against Boston, before opening the NBA regular season against the defending champion New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on October 20.<\/p>\n
James\u2019s arrival has already found the 76ers battling outside \u201cnoise\u201d.<\/p>\n
James took to Instagram to refute a report from a play-by-play announcer during the team\u2019s first preseason game on Monday that James had admonished Embiid for being late to a practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe ain\u2019t been late, so stop the lie,\u201d James posted.<\/p>\n
James had acknowledged at the team\u2019s media day last month that such outside hubbub around the 76ers would be \u201cdoubled, tripled and quadrupled now that I\u2019m here\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-time leading scorer LeBron James makes 76ers debut following LA Lakers switch in NBA preseason, but Nets claim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,590,588,85,1055,6075],"class_list":["post-921633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921633","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=921633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}