James won\u2019t be alone. Sixers coach Nick Nurse<\/a> said he expects all five starters to be available for the team\u2019s preseason game in Brooklyn against the Nets. Among those also scheduled to play are Tyrese Maxey<\/a>, Jaylen Brown<\/a>, Joel Embiid<\/a>, and VJ Edgecombe<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nurse also shared that he expects the starters to play about half the game, mirroring the minutes of Brown and Edgecombe in the Sixers\u2019 120-97 win over the Knicks on Monday. Brown had 22 points in 17 minutes and Edgecombe posted 12 points and seven assists in 20 minutes. <\/p>\n Nick Nurse said he anticipates the starters all playing. Playing about a half tonight.<\/p>\n \u2014 Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) October 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n While his regular-season debut will come Oct. 20 against the Knicks, Thursday\u2019s game will be the first time fans get to see James in game action alongside some of his teammates.<\/p>\n They got a taste of James on the court in Sixers gear when the team held its annual Blue x White scrimmage on Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n Those who are out include Anfernee Simons (right hamstring), Adem Bona (left foot sprain) and Dominick Barlow (back). Simons, Bona and Barlow are also expected to be out for Saturday\u2019s game at Boston.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: The latest Sixers \u2018noise\u2019: LeBron James denies calling out Joel Embiid for being late<\/a><\/p>\n After Wednesday\u2019s practice coach Nick Nurse talked about the balance he and the team were weighing playing its regular contributors in the preseason in the wake of Ariel Hukporti\u2019s Achilles injury.<\/a><\/p>\n Nurse said sitting players out for the entire preseason, and then having them go full speed once the season begins may end up doing more harm than good. He brought up the number of injuries that still happen early in NFL seasons when players may not play much or at all in preseason games.<\/p>\n \u201cGuys are getting hurt anyway and they\u2019re like, \u2018Wait, are they getting hurt because they didn\u2019t condition themselves in the [preseason]?\u2019 So it\u2019s interesting because everybody\u2019s talking about it across multiple sports,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make much sense to me that you sit out all the games and all of a sudden it\u2019s going 100 miles an hour in game one, because the pace is even over 100 early in the year.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch the first episode<\/p>\n After an exciting Sixers offseason highlighted by the additions of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, join Inquirer beat writers Gina Mizell and Chris Hine for a preview of the season. Watch here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Sixers Extra podcast on Spotify<\/a> or Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Thursday will be the first time LeBron James takes the floor in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,136142,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-368642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-lebron-james-sixers-debut-nba-preseason-game","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791525778_253_circle_outline_footer_light_theme.png\"\/)
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