{"id":826868,"date":"2026-07-26T08:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/826868\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T08:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:50:13","slug":"multiple-league-sources-confirm-that-the-nba-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/826868\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple league sources confirm that the NBA was \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>News of James\u2019 two-year agreement with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/philadelphia-76ers\/20\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:76ers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;76ers&quot;}\" class=\"link \">76ers<\/a> was printed on cardboard and posted by the Topps social media team in conjunction with James in a collaborative Instagram post before any reporter or even the league could get their hands on the information. ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania was beaten to the punch when James\u2019 free agency decision was released on social media, first posted by Topps trading cards at 11:30 a.m. ET and in tandem with James\u2019 X account post where he gave a sentimental message to his fans. Topps had this announcement nearly a full minute ahead of Charania, who posted on X that James was taking his talents to Broad Street. <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/24\/sports\/how-topps-beat-everyone-to-the-lebron-james-76ers-decision\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Multiple league sources confirm that the NBA was blindsided by this type of announcement, as Topps posted what appeared to be an already-autographed one-of-one trading card \u2014 perhaps signaling that this was in the works for some time;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Multiple league sources confirm that the NBA was blindsided by this type of announcement, as Topps posted what appeared to be an already-autographed one-of-one trading card \u2014 perhaps signaling that this was in the works for some time&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Multiple league sources confirm that the NBA was blindsided by this type of announcement, as Topps posted what appeared to be an already-autographed one-of-one trading card \u2014 perhaps signaling that this was in the works for some time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/24\/sports\/how-topps-beat-everyone-to-the-lebron-james-76ers-decision\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Post;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;New York Post&quot;}\" class=\"link \">New York Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News of James\u2019 two-year agreement with the 76ers was printed on cardboard and posted by the Topps social&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[22388,49,48,459,21170,82,221529],"class_list":["post-826868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-76ers","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-shams-charania","tag-sports","tag-topps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}