Respect to LeBron James. Because Philly was the hard one.<\/p>\n
The tough call. The biggest potential for failure at the end of a brilliant career.<\/p>\n
And yet, James walked right through the door, toward one of the NBA\u2019s toughest and most knowledgeable fanbases; toward an infamous media contingent that, with all due respect to my man Dan Woike and his cohorts, is a little harder on the local teams than what James has dealt with in L.A. the last eight years; toward the hoops history of a city that\u2019s waited 43 years for another pro basketball title; toward the comparisons with the Eagles, who\u2019ve won two Super Bowls in the last decade; toward Joel Embiid\u2019s tortured injury, and the ghosts of Iverson and Barkley and the Doctor<\/a>.<\/p>\n That is not to say James opting for the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> doesn\u2019t make sense in terms of basketball. It isn\u2019t a perfect fit, but Philly checks a lot of boxes that should make sense to a 41-year-old entering his 24th NBA season.<\/p>\n Why Philly will be LeBron’s hardest test<\/p>\n David Aldridge and Johnny Sweet<\/p>\n Yes, James wanted to win. His camp made sure to repeat that talking point over and over Friday. But James could have won in Cleveland alongside Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley. He certainly could have won again in Miami, playing again for Erik Spoelstra \u2014 and, now, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo. But James chose the challenge of winning in the Illadelph, which chews up and spits out pretenders and talented players who don\u2019t fit the city\u2019s work ethic or its self-proclaimed credo of toughest guys on the block.<\/p>\n It is incredible that, 10 weeks after getting their doors blown off in an(other) embarrassing playoff series loss to the New York Knicks, the 76ers have added James and Jaylen Brown and completely reset the expectations for the franchise. Such big swings are not new in Philadelphia. Big city, big mouths, big expectations.<\/p>\n Bryce Harper coming to the Phillies in 2018 was a game-changer for that franchise. So, too, was the arrival of the Terrell Owens circus with the Eagles in 2004.\u00a0But this has a different texture, in large part because of the four decades the 76ers have toiled, in vain, to win it all again<\/a>.<\/p>\n James warps the landscape around him, bends everything to his will and talents. He\u2019s won at least one championship everywhere he\u2019s been. One will do in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n Why LeBron James chose the Philadelphia 76ers<\/p>\n Joe Vardon and Jeshua Kidd<\/p>\n To be sure, James will have help. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are one of the league\u2019s best young backcourts; Maxey and James are both Rich Paul clients and know each other well. Embiid is hurt a lot, usually at the worst possible time. But don\u2019t get it twisted: He can still hoop, as he showed in Philly\u2019s comeback first-round playoff series win over the Boston Celtics. And, not unimportantly, as he showed in the 2024 Olympics, when he played exactly one game of consequence for the U.S. team: the semifinal win against Nikola Joki\u0107 and Serbia<\/a>, when Embiid helped James and Stephen Curry claw back from a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit.<\/p>\n But the difference-maker for Philly \u2014 of this, there is no doubt \u2014 is the presence of Brown, acquired from Boston in a trade that will be discussed for decades.<\/p>\n The advanced stats crowd may not think much of Brown. James, the guy with four NBA titles, for three different teams, who is also the league\u2019s all-time leading scorer, a 21-time all-NBA selection and a 22-time All-Star, holds Brown in higher esteem. Brown had to go through some tough times in Boston before he and Jayson Tatum finally delivered a championship to one of the league\u2019s top two most storied franchises in 2024 \u2014 when Brown won NBA Finals MVP<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the rarefied air where players like James reside, that gets your attention.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question, Jaylen Brown going to the Sixers changed them from a contending team to a championship-caliber team,\u201d a league source with knowledge of James\u2019 thinking,granted anonymity to speak freely, said Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n James did indeed contemplate retirement after the Lakers were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round. But he felt \u201cincomplete,\u201d the source said, in assessing the season. He\u2019d been incredible in L.A.\u2019s first-round upset of the Houston Rockets, playing without Luka Don\u010di\u0107 for the whole series and with Austin Reaves for just 64 total minutes in six games. But James also saw that he\u2019d been able to be a supporting cast member in the regular season, when Don\u010di\u0107 was healthy and at his best, and Reaves became a dependable second scoring option.<\/p>\n He could still play. But did he still want to do the grunt work \u2014 the lifting and shooting drills, and the running and the drudgery of getting ready to play again?<\/p>\n So he took his time to think about it.<\/p>\n Miami was real. Even though Pat Riley had napalmed the bridge back for James when he was a free agent in 2014 by all but calling James a coward<\/a> if he didn\u2019t re-sign with the Heat, James still knew and respected the Heat\u2019s relentless pursuit of championships. Playing with Antetokounmpo and Adebayo, and again for Spoelstra, had real appeal, even if the frontcourt fit was a little clunky.<\/p>\n The Cavaliers, obviously, carried both an on-court path to success behind Mitchell, Mobley and James Harden, and the powerful pull of nostalgia for James to end his career where it began, less than an hour from his beloved Akron, in a third and final stint with the Cavs. He knew the landscape of Cleveland and felt comfortable and at home there. No one would have begrudged him taking the road most traveled.<\/p>\n But Philly, post-Brown, had a lot to offer.<\/p>\n As late as Thursday evening, \u201cWe knew we were in the hunt. We knew we were real,\u201d said a team source who was granted anonymity to discuss negotiations between James and the 76ers.<\/p>\n Why LeBron almost signed with the 76ers in 2018<\/p>\n Dan Woike and Jeshua Kidd<\/p>\n But the Sixers didn\u2019t know for sure. No one did. James didn\u2019t seek advice from his longtime circle of most trusted advisers on where he should go. They didn\u2019t push it. All the contending teams, including the long-shot Minnesota Timberwolves,<\/a> were kept at a respectable distance as James made the final call Friday morning.<\/p>\n Embiid and Maxey had both made pitches to James over the last couple of weeks. Paul has a strong relationship with David Blitzer, Josh Harris\u2019 partner in the parent company that owns the 76ers and New Jersey Devils and a minority stake in the Premier League\u2019s Crystal Palace F.C.<\/p>\n And James had run into Harris, the 76ers\u2019 governor, at a VIP event during Fanatics Fest in New York last week<\/a>. Harris, understanding that everyone in Philly, with a couple of notable, thought-out exceptions<\/a>, was giving James his space, made a brief pitch, saying that he\u2019d be welcomed with open arms if he came to town. James, the team source said, was cordial and polite with Harris but did nothing to tip his hand about his intentions.<\/p>\n Everyone, more or less, found out together.<\/p>\n Perhaps James knew all along. Maybe he didn\u2019t know until Friday morning. But he is a student of the game. Surely, he knew both the potential for failure and success were, and are, greater in Philadelphia than any of the other teams on his list.<\/p>\n Surely, he knew that he is one of just four players \u2014 Robert Horry, Danny Green and John Salley are the others \u2014 to win championships with three different teams. No doubt, James understands that if he pulls this off, and there\u2019s a parade down Broad Street next June, and he gets a fifth ring, which would get him on the line with Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, that his case for being the greatest player in NBA history would receive a turbo boost.<\/p>\n And he\u2019d be right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Respect to LeBron James. Because Philly was the hard one. The tough call. The biggest potential for failure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17190,20359,4794,69,1002,71,70],"class_list":["post-251767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251767","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=251767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}