Why the Sixers Are Already Planning For LeBron James Correctly

The Sixers needed a power forward. They got a point forward.

According to Shams Charania, Philadelphia envisions using LeBron James as an initiator of the offense.

"The Sixers, I'm told, are expecting LeBron James to play a good amount of time at the point guard position on offense," Charania reported Monday on ESPN's NBA Today.

"Initiating the game, the offense for Nick Nurse. Tyrese Maxey, last season, played a lot on the ball at point guard and we know his prowess off the ball as a scorer. But think of a better player that can set the table for Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, V.J. Edgecombe. There's all these players that can score, that can get the ball from LeBron James and the one season LeBron spent at point guard in the NBA in his 23 seasons, the 2019-20 season. He led the league in assists, the Lakers won the championship that year and we never saw Point LeBron again until potentially this season," Charania continued.

"But the buzz word around the Sixers right now is sacrifice and they're going to have a couple team mini-camps in August that'll give the Sixers and LeBron James an opportunity to spend time with each other, to galvanize, to get that chemistry right before the start of the season. But Tyrese Maxey and LeBron James are already spending time working out in Los Angeles this week."

That's a lot of words to fill a minute of spotlight. There are some nice bits of context, like the late-summer team activities to get a head start on building this thing. 'Sacrifice' ruling the day in the organization, which James made abundantly clear merely by taking the veteran minimum to come to Philadelphia. The workouts with his young pal Maxey in Los Angeles, which is not remotely surprising anyway given that they're represented by the same agent and LA is the destination for most NBA players in the summer.

The real lede here is Charania's first sentence.

The Sixers expect James to take on primary ballhandling duties in the offense.

That's not a good thing.

It's an excellent thing.

One of the biggest credible skepticisms of this team, before and after James picked Philadelphia, was how the Sixers were going to sustain shooting. The question isn't shot creation. It's who is going to be comfortable taking a significant volume of catch-and-shoot 3s. Their two leading answers to that question were Maxey and Anfernee Simons, two guards who probably shouldn't see the floor together in high-leverage games.

But there was some level of assumption that Maxey had earned the right to continue running the show, meaning that everyone was going to have to adjust their usages. From a tactical perspective, that would also mean there's one less shooting threat to keep defenses stretched off the ball.

Philadelphia now has a remedy for that.

It's more difficult to use your floor vision when you're 6-foot-2. Throwing two bigger bodies at the ball makes it difficult to see over the defense. It's easy to send a late helper from the baseline side on the drive, complicating attempts at the rim at the last possible moment.

Putting the ball in the hands of the 6-foot-9 guy does two things. If you guard James with a like-sized defender, that takes a big body away from the rim. If you guard James with a smaller defender who can get under him, he can see over the top to make passes. At 6-foot-9, you can see over complex coverages, finding the open man at the right moment.

Because James is that tall, it has to mean he'll be passing from higher angles. And if you're passing from higher angles, you're not floating too many passes to get around longer defensive bodies. You're throwing darts, usually aiming downward because of where your shoulders are at 6-foot-9.

Now imagine the elements introduced by Maxey playing off the ball.

If he's being deployed as a spacer, defenses are probably going to want to deny the catch because it's bad business to let the guy shooting 42% on catch-and-shoot 3s and an explosive first step come off picks. If you're jamming him at the top of the pin-down, it means the backdoor is probably open.

Pick your poison.

What if you screen from the block instead of from the arc?

If Maxey's man is squaring to him, it's a lot of work to recover from a back screen and chase him through to the other side of the floor. Would a defense dare switch that action, creating a mismatch for, say, Joel Embiid or Jaylen Brown in the post? If it's a stagger around the paint, do you switch on the second screener and have his man stay with Maxey, potentially creating a size mismatch on the other side of the paint? Or do you just chase, letting Maxey square to the basket and catch a pinpoint-accurate pass from one of the best playmaking forwards of all time for an open 3?

Imagine what it could do for Brown.

Brown does not have a very consistent history as a catch-and-shoot threat. But his best seasons off the catch usually coincided with lower usage rates. Think about some of the hubs Brown played off of in Boston—Marcus Smart, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Al Horford, Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum. All adequate or even good passers in their own rights. None are James.

It's not that far-fetched that Brown's accuracy could benefit from an initiator who will consistently pass to his shooting pocket. Not at his ankles, not to his left side, not above his head. Right into his shooting pocket.

Consider the problems created by James getting downhill out of a pick-and-roll with Brown or Edgecombe on the other side of the floor. Defenders on the weak side take one too many steps toward the middle, and those guys are cutting behind turned backs with heads of steam for dunks.

How about the confusion the Sixers can create with a ball screen?

It was not that long ago that you had to ponder the merits of a Buddy Hield ghost screen for Maxey because of the way it briefly made defenses hesitate to evaluate the action, and that split second was all that was needed to create an opening.

That's not quite as potent as any of Maxey, Brown or Edgecombe sprinting to the ball and faking or brushing a screen before flashing out to the perimeter, all while James is initiating his first step.

Putting the ball in James' hands allows him to lord over the offense in space, organizing traffic and catalyzing possessions through the eyes of a genius.

He still has the downhill force to make defenders clench their jaws in stress. Perimeter defenders usually turn their backs to their assignments when the shot goes up. If the Sixers ever get an offensive rebound and James' man doesn't tag him, well, make sure your camera is ready.

These are just the machinations in one man's head as concepts of how James will be used emerge. Imagine what it'll look like when all these pieces actually take the floor some three months from now.

Add us as a preferred source on Google