LeBron James Signs Two-Year Deal with Philadelphia 76ers for 24th NBA Season
LeBron James is heading to Philadelphia. The 41-year-old agreed to a two-year, $8 million contract with the 76ers that includes a player option, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, with Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul confirming the deal. James announced the decision Friday morning on X.
“I thought I was done when the season ended,” James wrote. “I was pretty sure I played my last game. I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and decide if I still love this game. I still truly love this game, and I have more to give.”
He continued: “I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time. Thank you LA. Miami I’ll forever love and Northeast Ohio will always be home!”
The move ends James’s eight-season run with the Los Angeles Lakers, a tenure that produced the franchise’s 17th championship in the 2020 Orlando bubble. He informed the Lakers before free agency opened that he intended to leave, per Yahoo Sports. His final Lakers season — the first in which he wasn’t the clear No. 1 option after Luka Dončić’s arrival — saw him average 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists across 60 games while shooting 51.5% from the floor. When injuries shelved Dončić and Austin Reaves for the playoffs, James carried the load: 23.2 points and 7.3 assists per game in a first-round win over Houston before Oklahoma City swept Los Angeles in the second round.
Philadelphia has been the most aggressive roster-builder in the league this summer. The 76ers traded Paul George and draft capital to Boston for All-NBA forward Jaylen Brown in what Yahoo called the most shocking move of the offseason, then added James to a core featuring former MVP Joel Embiid, All-NBA guard Tyrese Maxey, and rising star VJ Edgecombe. Philadelphia is chasing its first title since 1983 and projects to challenge the reigning champion New York Knicks atop the Eastern Conference — provided Embiid’s knees cooperate, which is the caveat attached to every Sixers season since approximately the Pleistocene era.
The $8 million figure is striking for a player with a lifetime Nike contract and career earnings north of $580 million. James said as much himself: “I’m not going for money. I’m not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point? I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind.” The player option lets him reassess after one season and limits Philadelphia’s long-term exposure.
While James was finalizing his basketball future, Drake was busy reminding everyone he hasn’t forgotten the past. At NOCTA Manor — an exclusive multi-day retreat hosted by the rapper in partnership with Nike — Drake posed for a photo with Spanish padel player Juan Lebrón Chincoa and offered a line that doubled as merchandising and mockery: “The only LeBron I rate is Juan.”
The jab is the latest in a series that began when James publicly supported Kendrick Lamar during the 2024 Drake-Lamar feud. Drake, who once built his “Forever” music video around James’s high school highlights and carried a LeBron tattoo on his left arm — recently covered up — openly dissed James on his 2026 album Iceman, including the tracks “Fighting Irish Freestyle” and “Make Them Remember.” James, for his part, participated in Drake’s “Shabang” viral trend last month, apparently unbothered that the song appeared on the same album containing the diss tracks.
Drake using a Nike-affiliated event to needle the most prominent Nike athlete on the planet is either corporate comedy or a man who has stopped caring about sponsor optics. Either way, James has a championship to chase in a city that hasn’t hosted a parade in four decades, and Drake has a padel player to promote.
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