LeBron James should have plenty of reasons to smile next season with the 76ers.
He has no meaningful prior relationship with any player, coach, front office personnel or ownership there.
He never lived in the city, doesn’t own a home there, only visited there once a season over the last several, and there is no concrete proof that he ever, in his 41 years, ordered a cheesesteak there (which is sacrilege).
That said:
LeBron James to the Philadelphia 76ers? Makes perfect sense.
This comes as a surprise on the surface, and yet adds up beneath the surface. That’s because the team as constituted appears to be a solid match for the player as constituted. The Sixers are built to win big and James is still viable enough to win big, with strings attached to both sides:
• Can Joel Embiid stay healthy?
• Will James, who’s about to enter his 24th season, manage to break Father Time’s ankles yet again?
If so, then everything is in play for James and his fourth team next season.
There is undoubtedly joy in Philly today, tomorrow and will be on Opening Night. The city and team haven’t felt this level of offseason sizzle since 1982, when Moses Malone was traded from the Houston Rockets to Philadelphia. There, he joined fellow former NBA MVP Julius Erving and the Sixers, and immediately won a championship on the strength of the fit and Malone’s “fo, fo, fo” playoff prediction.
The Sixers haven’t sipped champagne since. Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, “The Process” and all manner of players and blueprints shuffled in and out of town over multiple decades. All failing to restore the franchise’s championship shine. And now, along comes an unlikely addition — missing piece? — to put the Sixers in position to level up.
In this situation, James doesn’t need to be a savior, burn heavy minutes, bail out teammates, score big points or play deep into games or even the season. He has defenders around him, which is critical. He has scorers around him. He should be comfortable with his surroundings and vice versa.
So, about the team James is about to join …
Joel Embiid (left) and LeBron James will be headed in the same direction come the 2026-27 season.
This is actually the second newsy development for the Sixers this summer, coming on the heels of another surprising bulletin: Jaylen Brown moving there from the Celtics. Not only did Boston send an All-NBA player to a rival, but the cost for Philly was astonishingly low.
Brown just had a career season, is only 29 and perhaps anxious to squash all the senseless nitpicking chatter about his game. He’s a proven two-way player who has averaged at least 20 points per game each of the last seven seasons and he can shut down 20-point scorers as well.
The Sixers’ other All-NBA player last season, Tyrese Maxey, also had a breakout. Maxey completed a transition from supporting player to A-lister by carrying the Sixers during generous stretches without Embiid, averaging 28.3 ppg and demonstrating nightly that few if any players reach the rim quicker or more efficiently (he was No. 12 in points scored in the paint).
Also, the honors don’t end there. VJ Edgecombe made the All-Rookie First Team, showcasing consistency and a willingness to take (and make) clutch shots (he was No. 2 among all rookies in clutch points). He was a solid backcourt complement to Maxey and, at 20, is still developing.
There’s also a respectable support in new additions Anfernee Simons, Dean Wade, Adem Bona and rookie Labaron Philon Jr. All should find important roles in 2026-27, keeping James and the other starters fresh enough for the 82-game grind.
Oh, and Embiid.
He, of course, is the asterisk — the one player who can make or break James’ time in Philly.
He has missed (495) more games than he has played (490) in his career. He never played 70 games in any season. In the last three seasons combined, he played 96 games, an average of 32 per season.
He is chronically injured, his body unreliable — at least, to date — and he turns 33 next season. That raises suspicion that his ailments are adding up and could conspire to limit his on-court time.
Or maybe Embiid may choose the right time to remain upright and, if nothing else, preserve himself for the playoffs.
Of course, a healthy Embiid is a beastly Embiid, and he showed as much in the first round of the playoffs. The Sixers rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to oust Brown and the Celtics in Game 7, with Embiid logging 34 points and 12 rebounds in Game 7. But he was also scratched from playoff games and the Sixers, who were swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the eventual champion New York Knicks, never stood much of a chance of advancing far without him (or with cameos by him).
He won Kia MVP in 2022-23 and is one of a handful of players who command a double team nightly. If his legs cooperate, he can be a fierce rim protector. James has never had a big man with these credentials.
So, about the icon the Sixers are getting …
LeBron James continues to find new ways to pick apart opposing defenses.
James turns 42 on Dec. 30, but this isn’t your typical twilight player. While this isn’t the MVP LeBron, far from it actually, he’s a top-20 player by any estimation who brings championship experience and moxie to his team.
Even better, James is the rare star who can blend in without conflicting much, if any, with his teammates. And best of all, the Sixers need what he offers most at this age — his passing. Maxey and Edgcombe don’t have point guard instincts. Given the many scoring options on the Sixers, James could average 10 apg next season if he wants.
He can still average 20 points himself, but why bother with so many weapons? Why do that when there are egos and hot hands to feed instead? There will be times when scoring is necessary, when his teammates turn chilly, or maybe on those nights when the bucket seems big. Also, he can and will be a fourth-quarter scoring option in the playoffs, which will remove a layer of defense away from Embiid and also allow others, such as Maxey and Brown, ample chances to go one-on-one.
Essentially, the possibilities with James are endless. And it helps to have a championship-winning coach (like Nick Nurse) around to figure it out.
There are other reasons why James plus Philly can equal big success. He’s in the Eastern Conference, away from the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs. It would’ve been difficult to join a team in the West that had to go through one or both of those powerhouses to reach the NBA Finals.
By going East, James and the Sixers will instantly be a heavyweight. Two teams that were viewed as favorites to land James, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat, aren’t filled with as many star-level players as the Sixers. The defending champion Knicks suddenly have steep competition in their quest to repeat.
By joining the Sixers, James showed his hand: he wants to win at least another championship before he retires. Should he accomplish that, it would bring him one shy of tying Michael Jordan’s mark. And don’t dismiss that accomplishment. Getting five championships and entering that company would mean plenty to James and the fans’ ongoing GOAT conversation between the two would only intensify.
So the decision has been made. James and the Philadelphia 76ers are an unlikely marriage that seemingly should work. Theirs is a brotherly connection without the prior history. Sound strange? Obviously.
And this is also obvious: The league and the 2026-27 season just got more interesting.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA since 1985. You can e-mail him at spowell@nba.com, find his archive here and follow him on X.
