LeBron James is a Philadelphia 76er. Let that marinate for a second, pal. The all-time leading scorer, four-time champion, a man who has worn three jerseys and turned each city into his personal buffet table — he’s now pulling on the red and blue for a two-year, $8 million veteran minimum deal. Eight million. For a guy who averaged 20.9 points last season at age 41. That’s not a contract. That’s a man telling you the only thing left on his plate is a ring.
James announced the decision Friday on social media, calling it “my last decision” and writing that he still wanted “a chance at the feeling of winning another championship.” He told his agent, Rich Paul, to inform the Sixers Friday morning. Nobody in his inner circle knew before that. The Cavaliers, Heat, Warriors, and Timberwolves — all of them sniffing around the king’s table — didn’t even get a phone call.
Here’s where it gets good. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey didn’t sit around waiting for LeBron to pick a lane. According to league sources who spoke with The Athletic, both players “doggedly pursued James over the last few weeks,” placing multiple phone calls to try to sway him. Embiid — the MVP with the bad knees and the appetite for destruction — was a heavy figure throughout the entire recruitment. He wanted this. He picked up the phone and kept picking it up. That’s not analytics, genius. That’s two big men who understand you don’t let the best player on the board walk to somebody else’s kitchen.
What cracked the door open for Philadelphia was the Jaylen Brown trade. First-year president of basketball operations Mike Gansey pulled off the kind of deal that makes you spill your nachos: Brown, the 2024 Finals MVP, shipped from Boston to Philly for Paul George and four future picks. That transformed the Sixers from longshots to the table everyone wanted a seat at. Before that trade, the Sixers internally considered themselves longshots for James. After it, they were all in.
Gansey has history with LeBron that goes back further than most of the league’s current rosters. In 2001, Gansey was an all-state senior at Olmsted Falls outside Cleveland, averaging 27 points and 10 boards. He was runner-up for Ohio’s Mr. Basketball. The kid who won it? A sophomore at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s named LeBron James. Gansey later worked in the Cavaliers’ front office during James’ return to Cleveland. He didn’t hard-sell LeBron on Philly. He didn’t have to. The roster did the talking.
James will slide in at power forward, starting opposite Brown. Maxey can play off the ball, which means LeBron’s playmaking still gets fed. With Embiid anchoring the middle, James can blend without carrying the whole offensive load — something he admitted was new territory in Los Angeles. “I’ve never been a third option in my life,” he said after the Lakers’ season ended. He won’t have to be the first option in Philly either. He just has to be the right one.
The Sixers now have their best team and best title shot since Allen Iverson’s MVP season in 2001. Embiid, Brown, Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, championship coach Nick Nurse, and now a 41-year-old who still shoots 51.5 percent from the field. James informed the Lakers earlier this summer that he would not return, closing an eight-year run that included the 2020 title and the all-time scoring record.
Topps, the Fanatics-owned trading card company, may have beaten everyone to the punch by a matter of seconds on X — LeBron has an exclusive partnership with Fanatics and had been teasing the announcement at Fanatics Fest in New York. But the real story isn’t who tweeted first. It’s that Embiid kept dialing, Gansey kept his cool, and LeBron decided Philadelphia was the last kitchen he wanted to cook in.
