LeBron James makes 76ers debut
CAMDEN, New Jersey — LeBron James took his seat and fidgeted with a microphone before he tossed his identification placard on the ground.
“You guys know who I am, right?” James asked.
Sure do. No introduction needed.
LeBron James, the most famous basketball player in the world and the NBA's career scoring leader, was indeed in a No. 23 Philadelphia 76ers jersey. He's happy to play for the Sixers, happy to play with close friend and fellow All-Star Tyrese Maxey and happy to start a record 24th NBA season — with no promises of how long his career is going to last.
James did make one vow: He's not in Philadelphia to lose.
“I didn't leave my family,” James said Monday, “to lose in the second round.”
James, Maxey, Joel Embiid and the other new star Sixers player, Jaylen Brown, were all on hand for media day ahead of the start of training camp and what figures to be the most anticipated season in Philly since Julius Erving's heyday.
James is the undisputed star of the show.
The usual assortment of beat writers and bloggers were dwarfed inside the Sixers' complex in New Jersey by cameras and questions from media entities far beyond the NBA scope. James, naturally, handled himself like a true professional, used to the global spotlight since he was put on a basketball pedestal as a teenager.
“Understand that the noise is going to be the noise,” James said. “What happens outside of this building is going to consistently happen, and it's going to be doubled and triple and quadrupled down on you. It just comes with the territory. I understand it.”
Much as James did for Cleveland when he ended a 52-year championship drought for the city by leading the Cavaliers to the title in 2016, he's in Philadelphia largely to help snap a championship drought for the Sixers that stretches to 1983 — just one year before James was born.
The Sixers went 45-37 last season and were swept in the second round by the eventual champion New York Knicks.
Enter a summer makeover already boosted by the shocking trade with Boston for Brown and anchored by James’ arrival. The 41-year-old James — new teammate Justin Edwards called him “Unc” — signed a modest $8 million, two-year contract on the veterans’ minimum with the Sixers.
The contract might be the minimum. The outlook is pretty much championship-or-bust for a franchise that has failed to advance out of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs since 2001.
So how will James mesh with Maxey? Pay heed with Embiid? Bond with Brown?
Pretty easily, actually — for now.
“I think the luxury of my game is, I can do everything,” James said. “Literally, I can do everything.”
He can back up the boast. He’s a 22-time All-Star, a 21-time All-NBA selection, a four-time Most Valuable Player, a four-time NBA Finals MVP, a three-time All-Star Game MVP and a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team.
He also is coming off a season with the Lakers in which he averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game. For his career, he has averaged 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists in more than 1,600 games.
“Him being here is really cool,” Maxey said.
His pull with James had an added benefit — Maxey got him on the team text group chat.
VJ Edgecombe said he organized a thread once Brown was traded, but the idea got complicated once James signed in July.
“LeBron came, and obviously I don’t got LeBron James’ number,” Edgecombe said. “I can’t say, ‘go add 'Bron to the group chat.’ Besides, even if I had his number, why would I randomly add LeBron to a group chat? You get what I’m saying? So I told Tyrese to do it.”
James weighed his career options after flirting with retirement at the end of last season. The pull to stay at his family home in Los Angeles rather than moving to the East Coast was tempting. James noted that one son plays college ball at Arizona, his daughter just started middle school and “my oldest son, my former teammate, is starting his third year in Los Angeles.”
That, of course, would be Bronny James. Don't forget his wife, Savannah, whom James noted “is doing so many unbelievable things right now in her own personal journey.”
After time away with family, and still feeling physically and mentally strong in offseason workouts, James decided he wanted to keep playing.
With key members of Sixers ownership and the front office watching from the side, James declined to get into the issue of how much longer he wants to play. His lone focus, he said, was learning how to play with new teammates — most, like Embiid, haven't won a title — and trying to bring the championship mentality he knows so well from winning titles with the Cavaliers, Heat and Lakers to the Sixers.
“I hope that I can, you know, bring that experience, bring that knowledge, bring the blueprint to the guys that's trying to accomplish some things that they haven't done in their career,” James said. “I've seen everything that this league has to offer on the floor and off the floor, so I hope that every single day with my approach to the game, approach to the work, that it can translate to every single guy."
James started his career in Cleveland in 2003 and spent seven seasons with the Cavs before heading to Miami for four seasons — where he won his first two NBA titles. He then returned to Cleveland for four more seasons, including that title run in 2016, and left in 2018 for the Lakers. He won a title in LA in 2020.
He won't set a timetable on how many years he has left in his career.
“I don't want to speak on the future right now,” James said. “I think that would be doing a disservice to myself on just living in the moment, especially knowing that I am where I am in my career.”
Unbelievably, that's Philadelphia.
