LeBron’s Decision to Sign With 76ers Over Cavaliers Was Clearly the Right One

It’s all coming up aces for LeBron James in Philadelphia.

The 41-year-old superstar is all smiles more often than not in his new 76ers uniform, and it’s hard to blame him. The team is coalescing earlier than expected, with eight wins in its first nine games. James is less involved than he’s ever been on a professional basketball court; his usage percentage is down to a career-low 22.5% and his touches per game are in the realm of secondary playmakers like Orlando’s Jalen Suggs and Portland’s Deni Avdija.

At the end of last season, James looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders (and was feeling every pound) as he powered the Lakers to a playoff series win without Austin Reaves or Luka Dončić. Now? He’s moving freely, powered by a confidence in the star-studded roster around him. James can pick his spots to exert energy at his leisure with the faith his teammates can handle themselves just fine the rest of the time. The man is even drinking wine in the stands and dryly remarking about its quality afterwards.

Here’s vid of LeBron taking a sip of a drink from a fan just now during tonight’s game.

Year 24 pic.twitter.com/oQOUA7JD8u
— Kris Rhim (@krisrhim1) November 3, 2026

James’s stats are underwhelming compared to what we’re accustomed to as a result of his lessened role. The longtime star is scoring 15.7 points per night on 13.1 shots per game. He remains involved as a distributor, dishing out 7.4 assists per night, and his 7.4 rebounds per contest indicate he’s redirecting some of his energy to hitting the boards. It’s not only critical to finishing off defensive possessions but also to sparking Philly’s deadly transition attack. If the ball starts in James’s hands after a successful stop, it’s flying down the court in short order.

None of that matters in light of Philadelphia’s wins, though, and how they’re coming. You can point to three or four reasons for the Sixers’ hot start before getting to James. We have quite literally never been able to say that about a LeBron team before. For better and for worse (mostly for better!) James has always been at the center of his team’s solar system every night for six months. There’s still a bright spotlight on him in Philly, because he is LeBron James—but his impact has never made up a smaller part of the winning formula than his time in a 76ers uniform so far.

And he’s clearly having a great time all the while.

“We got a good team,” James said after putting up a 13/10/8 stat line in a six-point revenge win over the Pistons on Wednesday night. “Guys vibe with one another, guys like each other, guys enjoy being around each other. That has a lot to do with it too. It makes the game a lot easier when you enjoy being around people.”

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Few expected it to be this smooth this early on. On Friday, James and his teammates will try to keep the good vibes rolling in his hometown against the Cavaliers, a team heading in an entirely different direction.

The contrast stands as further proof that James made the right call to sign on in Philadelphia instead of running it back for a third stint in Cleveland.

LeBron landed in the right spot after nearly signing with the Cavaliers again

LeBron James’s first handful of games in a Sixers uniform have been a tremendous success. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

When James hit free agency over the summer for what was almost certainly the final time in his career, the Cavs were immediately identified as a strong contender for his talents. Cleveland was coming off a brutally disappointing playoff run that ended in a four-game sweep to the eventual champion Knicks, so the franchise would have nothing to lose by pursuing its former star. Donovan Mitchell, James Harden and Evan Mobley made for a very talented trio of teammates to join forces with. Between the on-court appeal and full circle narrative of finishing his career where it all began, there was a long stretch of time where the Cavaliers were considered favorites for The King’s talents.

Of course, it did not come to be. James opted against going home for a third time in what Bill Simmons might coin a sliding doors moment. He declined to sign with Cleveland, leaving his former franchise to take a swing on Peyton Watson instead to solve the woes that led to its playoff elimination.

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It will be months before dividends can be truly evaluated on Watson and how this version of James might’ve performed in a Cavs uniform instead. But there’s no doubting James’s decision changed the trajectory of Cleveland’s future.

“We were anticipating and excited to land LeBron, and then you have that news, having gone through free agency a lot, when you're expecting something to happen and it doesn't happen, that first day or two, you're just like, you're depressed, quite honestly,” coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters in October. “That's the emotions of it.”

Two weeks into the year and the situation in Cleveland is even more depressing. The Cavs are 4–4 entering Friday’s contest. They blew a 29-point lead to LeBron in their first game of the year and are coming off back-to-back losses to a Thunder team that was missing three starters due to injury. The fourth loss came against a respectable Hawks team but featured a blown double-digit lead and the defense giving up a 43-point third quarter. The biggest concern of this Cleveland team is proving true so far—there’s very little resilience shown by any member of the roster when things go south.

As a result the vibes, as it were, are terrible. The season is long but the Cavaliers ended their last campaign meekly and have lost half their games in similar fashion to start the new one. A .500 record isn’t some impossibly deep hole to climb out of, but if you asked the average Cavaliers fan, it’s hard to envision a worse start. The hope that this team would be different is all but extinguished already.

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Now James is coming to town to offer a stark contrast. The vibes around his new team couldn’t be higher. His arrival has resulted in a fountain of hope springing anew around a basketball team historically snake-bitten. He’s delivered on what he promised in tandem with the other high-level talent in his orbit so far. In Cleveland, the sky is falling; in Philadelphia, it’s the limit.

Would the roles be reversed if James made a different choice over the summer? Perhaps. But what ails this Cavaliers roster feels deeper than what he could help with at this point in his career. What’s more, this alternate universe where LeBron resides in Cleveland again, he’d be facing untouchable expectations set by his own legacy to fix everything. Anything less and his third stint in a Cavaliers uniform would be considered a disappointment. It would have been great theater if James could do so, yet it’s difficult to envision a world in which the 41-year-old could.

These two teams are headed in different directions right now. It won’t necessarily be the case for the rest of the season. All sorts of things can change between now and April. But James arrives back home riding the high of a new team’s early success. He has the familiar burden of expectations heaped upon his broad shoulders for being LeBron James—but nothing more as his former franchise shrinks under the load of its own shortcomings.

In light of all that ... it’s hard to deny LeBron made the right call.

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