{"id":251557,"date":"2026-07-25T00:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T00:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/251557\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T00:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T00:22:15","slug":"lebron-james-going-to-the-philadelphia-76ers-is-perfectly-in-character-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/251557\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James going to the Philadelphia 76ers is perfectly in character | LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should we have seen this coming all along? LeBron James<\/a> knew that joining the Golden State Warriors would have been a losing gamble on the health of players five times closer to the ends of their careers than the beginnings. He knew the Cleveland Cavaliers, however strong their analytics, hopelessly lacked the unquantifiable greatness of a championship team. He knew the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Miami Heat were too unproven to hitch his wagon to.<\/p>\n

Of course he knew.<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> aren\u2019t necessarily the best team James could have chosen \u2013 I still think he could have soared the highest on the Minnesota Timberwolves (maybe that recruiting call from LaMelo Ball, or the prospect of riding shotgun with him, was just too off-putting) \u2013 but LeBron in Philly makes all the sense in the world.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Heat, Cavs or Warriors, the 76ers figure to have some margin for disaster. The main concern is that Joel Embiid is hopelessly injury-prone, and despite James proving more injury-resistant than his 20-something co-stars last season in Los Angeles, nobody should be expecting durability from a man who turns 42 in December.<\/p>\n

But Philly have enough talent that injuries may not prove catastrophic. There\u2019s the dynamic Tyrese Maxey, who led the league in minutes per game this past season. There\u2019s fellow 76ers newbie and former NBA<\/a> finals MVP Jaylen Brown, whose much-disparaged efficiency could easily improve with this good a supporting staff. Twenty-year-old VJ Edgecombe should just keep getting better in his sophomore season.<\/p>\n

Throw in James for 30 minutes a game to facilitate the offense, get Brown good shooting or driving looks, and take some of the playmaking burden off Maxey. In the games where Embiid\u2019s ligaments decide not to violently betray him, their starting five could stack up against any team\u2019s.<\/p>\n

LeBron James joins a talent-stacked Philadelphia roster that includes two-time NBA All-Star Tyrese Maxey (left). Photograph: Jesse D Garrabrant\/NBAE\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The decision, broken by ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania and complete with a plug for agent Rich Paul\u2019s podcast \u2013 I give it one more pivot to video before co-host credits start appearing on tombstones \u2013 is wonderfully LeBronian.<\/p>\n

The Sixers were always a fascinating potential landing spot for James following his departure from the Lakers. They showed more upside than expected in beating the Boston Celtics from 3-1 down to begin the playoffs, then added Brown in the offseason<\/a>. But they were hardly James\u2019s expected destination.<\/p>\n

The Heat seemed to have separated themselves from the pack, particularly when a social media editor with an itchy trigger finger posted a YouTube link titled \u201cLeBron James Introductory Press Conference\u201d scheduled for 27 July. The Cavs, with whom James began his career and had his finest moment in 2016<\/a>, were the romantic choice. The Warriors offered a chance to play with Stephen Curry.<\/p>\n

Leave it to LeBron to deny sentimentality in favor of a good basketball fit.<\/p>\n

Can we talk about the money now? James signed an $8m, two-year deal with Philadelphia<\/a>. That\u2019s dramatically closer to what his benchwarming son is making on the Lakers than the $104m extension James signed with Los Angeles in 2024. It\u2019s not that James doesn\u2019t have an ego. He initially struggled to slot into the Lakers as the third option behind Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Austin Reaves. The lede of an ESPN story in May depicted James walking out of Crypto.com Arena bitter over not being given the game ball on a night he became the player with the most wins in NBA history.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s remarkable is his ability to set aside that ego. His ethos of making the right play, not the play most conducive to individual glory, is unaffected by decades of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant hero-ball warping basketball discourse. James eventually embraced his third-option role and excelled at it. He accepted that he couldn\u2019t have the money he felt he deserved or a championship-caliber team in Los Angeles. Say what you will about him milking this decision for all it was worth, but the way James has conducted his career has never been selfish at the cost of being correct.<\/p>\n

This decision doesn\u2019t suddenly vault the 76ers into a tier with the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder. We\u2019ve yet to see them put together a hot streak as scalding or prolonged as the one that propelled the New York Knicks to a championship last month. James\u2019s fit in Philly may look better on paper than in practice. Father Time could come for him with a new vengeance this season. Embiid\u2019s knee may collapse with the force of a dying star.<\/p>\n

But entering his age-42 season, with a Hall of Fame-worthy micro-career packed into each of his three previous stops, LeBron James has injected fresh intrigue into his new team and the league as a whole. What more could you ask for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should we have seen this coming all along? LeBron James knew that joining the Golden State Warriors would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-251557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}