How Does LeBron Fit Into the 76ers’ Dynamic?

Rachel, we have not spoken since, uh, LeBron James made the decision 3.0, uh, Friday morning, uh, revealing that he was gonna sign with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Uh, LeBron, uh, taking his talents to Broad Street, I guess.

Let's call it that for now.

Uh, your thoughts on LeBron signing with Philly?

Well, I was as surprised as I think everyone else was.

I thought Philadelphia was kind of in last place of the options that he was looking at, uh, and I think either it's gonna work spectacularly or it's gonna be a failure.

I'm not sure there's a ton of room in the middle, but we'll find out.

Um, I applaud him knowing what he wanted.

And going after it.

I don't know how much buy-in he has from everybody else on that roster.

We heard reports of Embiid calling to talk to him and wanting him to come and certainly Tyrese Maxey, who is a fellow clutch client and obviously someone young and looks up to LeBron and in a very different position and point in his career, wanting LeBron there.

Um, I did not hear of Jalen Brown calling him and asking him to come.

Did you?

Uh, I saw some reports that he talked to Jalen Brown, but that's just, I have, I have not heard that specifically.

OK, that's the one that I just, I'm curious how that's gonna work because if you don't have buy-in from Jalen Brown, it's not gonna work.

This whole experiment is not gonna work.

So hopefully they talked in a way that, uh, Jalen Brown is comfortable with.

Because that's going to be the whole thing, right?

I mean, Joel Embiid's health is Joel Embiid's health.

If Joel's there, great.

If he's not there, obviously they'll figure out how to do it without him.

That's been the case for so many years in Philly.

It's almost just status quo.

I am much more interested in what the conversations with Jalen Brown were.

First of all, on the way into Philly, and maybe it was just when the trade happened with Boston.

Hey, we are going to extend you and that was enough .

And the fact that he would have these two guards, young guards and Joel and that all felt good to him.

Um, now that LeBron's there and it's going to be just a different level of oxygen for everybody involved, uh, I believe that LeBron is going into this level of sacrifice with his eyes wide open, but everybody has to, and I just don't know.

Jalen could be 100% on board, and if he is amazing, but I don't know that he is.

I just don't know .

Did it surprise you that he prioritized winning another championship because he used that word in his statement, winning a championship, bringing a championship to Philadelphia, like, There were a lot of potential reasons that he could have made a decision.

He could have made a decision based on family, stayed on the West Coast, gone to Golden State, nostalgia, go back to Cleveland, even to Miami, but he seemed to make this purely for basketball reasons.

It was not as he wrote about his family.

It was not about money , 2-year, $8 million dollar deal.

I do love there's a 15% trade kicker in there.

Like, just to make sure in case you decide to trade me, I'm gonna get $6,000,000.

Almighty because you know that's 600,000.

I'm a billionaire, but that 600,000 will really mean something.

Look, I think it makes sense what he is doing.

What he would have done in Cleveland or Miami kind of is this murky middle ground, and the Warriors would have made sense to me, and this makes sense to me.

The Cleveland and Miami actually, even though I know for a lot of people those were the favorites, that would have made less sense to me because I think neither team would have been a favorite, maybe even to be in the top two or three in the East had he picked.

One of those teams.

And in Philly, at least, if it works, again, if it works, they have the chance to be a huge powerhouse.

If he had gone to the Warriors, that would have been very clearly about like, hey man, it is fun to be an NBA player.

It is fun to be LeBron James.

I'm gonna hang out, play golf every day with Steph Curry because I now love golf.

I'm gonna drink with Draymond because we live near Napa now, and I'm going to be a 45 minute flight from my family, and this is the way to do it.

I've earned this and I would have understand.

That too, and it would have been fun playing for Steve Kerr, who he loved playing for at the Olympics that I would have gotten this I get the actual Cleveland and Miami.

I would have certainly understood the storyline, but I don't think it would have led him to as much happiness.

I get this.

Were you in Paris?

I don't think you were, right?

So I was at the Paris Olympics and one of the things that really struck me that he said after they won was it felt really great to play for something again.

And he said it again when he got back and gave his introductory press conference for his first time back with the Lakers after winning the gold medal.

He said his second time.

Felt really great to play for something again.

Look, this is a guy who from the time he got into the league until 2020 was in the NBA Finals 10 times in the last six years since 2020, he's been in the NBA Finals zero times.

That is a huge swing 10 times in 17 years and then 0 times in the last 5 or 6 years.

That is a big difference and to know.

That for the bulk of your career, the NBA Finals were almost the LeBron James invitational, and then you were just out of it and nobody really named you as a finals contender.

You were never seriously a finals contender.

The thing that you were supposedly suffering for, and man, it takes a lot to get him on the court.

You're around him pregame.

There's a lot going on to get him just on the court the 24 hours before a game.

To not even have a chance to win it all if you're that competitive, I understand saying, you know what, if I'm gonna do this one more time, if I'm gonna haul myself out there, I wanna be able to have the chance to win it all.

So I understand all of that.

I just don't know for sure.

Everyone's bought it.

Well, yeah, I mean, like , so look at it both ways.

One is, OK, you've got on paper one of the most dynamic offensive teams, at least in the Eastern Conference, probably in the entire NBA.

Um, LeBron, and look, some of the reporting now is out there.

LeBron's gonna play point guard, which I keep saying point forward, point forward.

It's kind of the same thing.

That's fine, yeah, and that's, look, and I actually, I like this, by the way, reporting that he, I mean, I'm not, everybody who's reporting does a lot more report.

I do not do this come of the same.

It's usually coming from the same source level reporting, but my point is this was not exactly a, it's not, he's not playing center, guys, so he's playing some version of that.

The, the suggestion in him playing point guard is that he is going to see his offensive numbers go way down.

He is gonna focus on.

Being a distributor, which he has to be on that team.

They have 4 players that were top 50 in usage rate last season.

Jalen Brown had the highest usage rate of his career.

Tyrese Maxey is a budding superstar, and I had one coach say to me, when Joel Embiid's on the floor, Joel Embiid's gonna believe it's his team.

Like Joel Embiid's gonna say, I'm getting my 20 shots.

I'm standing there in the middle.

Like I'm doing things my way.

It, it is critical for LeBron to, to take on this approach and be the point forward, which He knew coming in.

He like he didn't, he knew the sac like but he made this decision sacrifice.

He made that he used that word very early in the statement.

He, he knows what he's doing.

He is buying in by definition of being on this team.

We know that he is.

And by the way, it's a great role for him.

He has an innate sense of the floor.

He's fantastic at seeing the court.

He knows players are developing before they develop.

He's a terrific passer, and it is something that has been baked into him since high school, that being the guy who helps the.

is just as important as being the guy who scores to a point where he was criticized for it earlier in his career.

So this is something that he innately believes in and something that I think will get the ball in his hands, even if he is not the one shooting it.

And if you're, as long as you're touching the ball, you feel involved in the play.

It's when the guys are running up and down the court and being asked to play hard defense and not touching the ball at all, having it not go through their hands at all, that is where dissatisfaction starts.

That is where guys stop running back on defense.

And that is again what I would like to see.

We've all done the math.

I believe that if you use their usage numbers from last season, it's 140% basically if you round the numbers.

There are not 1.4 basketballs on the court.

So it's not just LeBron who has to sacrifice.

And it's easy to say you're going to sacrifice in July.

You and I have seen this time after time with super teams.

Occasionally it works, often it doesn't work.

And I'm curious to see what happens.

I love the July reporting on teams like this.

It's like, oh yeah, like the, the social media.

Opposed to the celebrations, everything is awesome in the, uh, in the offseason.

It's when you get, it's when you get to post-Christmas and before the trade deadline, like that stretch of games between December 26th and February 5th.

That's when you really find out the character of a team, because when you're coming off a three-game road trip through like Denver, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio, and you're trudging back to frozen Philadelphia at 3 o'clock in the morning off a three-game road trip or whatever it may be, that's when you're gonna find out.

If you're really all on board.

Although I will say going back east does a lot of things for LeBron.

Um, I actually think the Eastern Conference is one of the most talent rich it's been in a very long time, so it's not necessarily while the top is a little bit squishier, the talent throughout the conference is actually tougher, I think.

So it's not necessarily he's going to quote the easier conference because I think a lot of wins will actually be harder to come come by on a night to night basis.

The travel is going to be a lot easier.

That is not a small thing when you are that age.

And your body needs more sleep and recovery time.

The number of games that you're just going hopping up to New York, hopping up to Brooklyn, hopping down to Washington DC, hopping down to Charlotte, it's a big difference than getting on a plane.

Even LA, I mean people who like aren't living in the western half of the country, LA to Portland is a bitch, man.

That is a long flight.

LA to Texas, all of those teams, it's a long set of flights.

So I think that'll be Blazers and you have to connect.

I think that will be.

I think that was a good joke.

Uh, that will be easier on his body and just sort of the way the schedule is that you play your games earlier in the evening.

The other thing that I don't think people realize, NBA TV ratings are going to go up next year because LeBron made this decision.

And I think there was a real confusion when LeBron left Cleveland for Los Angeles and people were saying, oh man, the TV ratings, LeBron's going to the Lakers, that's just going to be an explosion of TV.

Ratings actually hurt the NBA because the Lakers already drew television ratings, especially in the Western markets where people are awake and they were already going to draw.

LeBron drew television ratings in Cleveland and in the Eastern markets where people liked watching him play at 7 p.m. Eastern.

When LeBron left those Eastern markets, that draw wasn't there anymore.

And he joined a draw that was already happening in Los Angeles.

Now he's going to Philadelphia.

People were not.

Around the country staying tuned for Philadelphia 76ers games these last 5 years and yet now it's going to be the greatest show on earth and it's going to be in a time zone where 2/3 of the country watches TV.

So just this one move alone, it's going to help the NBA's television ratings, it's going to help LeBron's sort of stamina and physical everything, but it does involve a lot of different moving parts going right and I haven't.

Gotten enough indication yet to know if that's gonna happen.

Do you think there's any chance the most hilarious thing in NBA history could happen, which is you get to January, the most hilarious thing?

I don't know.

I can't wait to hear this.

You get to January.

Everybody hates each other There's like a big injury or two mixed in there.

You're under 500.

Would the Sixers ever trade LeBron?

He's now the most tradable guy.

He's as tradable as anybody.

He's making 4 million bucks.

I mean, he could always just retire though.

Well, he, he could.

And they wouldn't, I don't think they'd up and just trade him to anybody.

Like you'd have to have that conversation with them.

But like any, all, all 29 teams, Warriors fans, you hold out hope .

All 29 teams can acquire LeBron James.

It takes nothing.

You don't have to.

He's a minimum guy.

He's a veteran minimum guy right now.

It's an unusual situation.

I, I, I will say this.

Tell me that wouldn't be hysterical.

Like this team just craters, which is again, I , I, I think it's gonna be fine.

I think they'll be pretty good, not great.

I, I think every history suggests that with very few exceptions, it takes time to meld a team like this together.

You not only have one new star, you have two new stars.

Guys that demand the ball.

There are going to be bumps along the road.

We'll see what Nick Nurse has got.

Like, remember, Nick Nurse was on just as shaky ground as Darryl Morey was, you know, just a couple of months ago.

Like he, well, I mean, some of that was his fault too.

Like they haven't, they haven't won.

Like.

Haven't achieved.

He hasn't.

He said calamity after calamity.

Oh, by the way, your team's picking up steam.

Paul George is suspended for 25 games, but he was on thin ice for a little while.

People were looking at him.

He may have been just because the easiest thing is to fire the coach, but I will tell you he has done as good, in my opinion, he has done as good a job with what he has been given as it was possible to do.

Look at, look over the list of calamities that man has had to like stand guard and captain.

We put it on Darryl Morey though.

Like, I mean.

Well, Darryl made a lot of those decisions.

Well, he didn't tell Darryl, you know, Paul George, take a banned substance .

I get it, but Nick Nurse didn't get into a fight with James Harden either.

So, you know, there's, I, I actually fight with everybody, myself included, I actually think Nick is a great coach for this situation.

He's a championship coach.

He's creative.

He's obviously, he's done what they're trying to do.

He's done what they're trying to do.

He understands how to deal with superstars who are not conventional, having to manage Kawhi Leonard in Toronto.

That year was no small thing.

I watched it up close.

Um, there were a lot of personalities in that team too.

Kyle Lowry is his own personality.

So I think he is going to be good with dealing with a lot of these factors, but in the end, it's going to be up to the players and how much and how they want to work together and then a lot of it's going to be luck too, as it always is injury luck, schedule luck, what happens to other teams?

Does another big team star get hurt and go down for the season?

We see that unfortunately every year like.

We'll just have to see what happens.

I think it's fascinating and it's interesting to me when you mentioned the money and the tradeability, and I wanted to get your take on this is this comes on the heel LeBron taking the $3.9 million dollar veteran minimum.

Basically it's a veteran exception, exception $4 million.

Great, he's making whatever.

He's making a shade under $4 million this year.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So 3.

0.

95, whatever you wanna call it, um, is on the heels of Victor Wabayama taking the less money that he could have taken.

Donovan Mitchell going for the earlier contract the same way that Jalen Brunson did, which is quote, leaving 100 million on the table even though you get then get that back on your next contract if you make it to your next contract, that sort of thing.

Um, you know, when there was a point where NBA players obviously have always made more money than the rest of us, but the differential was such that with the way that many of them chose, and this was their decision, but chose to live their lives, there was a large number of players who ended up broke and you could be a dentist and end up retiring with more money than an NBA player did because of the short.

Careers, the lifestyle, etc.

etc .

Now the amount of money has gotten so great there are definitely still guys who go broke.

We, we see it, we see the documentaries, the 30 for 30s, whatever, but the money is so much greater now.

The endorsement money is greater, the salary is greater, the minimums are greater that you just have a much bigger cushion and the guys who are bigger stars and take care of their money have an enormous cushion.

And when the supermax came in, I remember very clearly looking at Tracy McGrady on the show we did on ESPN and saying how much money is enough that you can start making decisions that have nothing to do with money.

Once you get the $250 million once you get the $260 million 300 dollars something million dollars.

Can you start making decisions that have nothing to do with money?

Because the truth is you can buy 8 Ferraris, you cannot buy 8 NBA titles, you cannot buy 1 NBA title, and you would think for a lot of these guys who have dedicated literally their entire lives to winning these championships and winning multiple rings pays you both financial and emotional dividends for the rest of your life.

I wonder if we're going to see more guys make decisions that aren't financially based, that are championship based, and we can say, gee, OK, the owners win because they introduced this basically hard cap and now guys are taking quote less money to go places, but.

I, I just think there's a point where maybe for some of these players they say, OK, I've got $300 million in the bank.

I've got a good financial advisor, kicks out 10% each year.

My grandkids, grandkids, grandkids are never gonna have to pay for anything.

At some point I'd like another championship, and it's worth it for me when I could make 50 million to take 20 million or when I could make 25 million to take 10 million so that I can win a title.

And I wonder it's not even that big.

It's more like this.

It's, it's really all about the supermax guys, the guys that are in the 35% tax bracket.

If you go what Wemby did, say 25%, that changes the way you can develop your team.

Down the line, you can probably find a way to keep both Steph Cassel and Dylan Harper on your team if you're willing to take that.

And look, I, I'm for that too because Again, for all the reasons you just kind of articulated there, like how much money is enough?

How much do you need at this point?

How many hundreds of millions of dollars are gonna make a difference?

I brought this up to you before, but that line that Jalen Brunson gave me in the magazine story stuck with me, where he said like, I could have held out for more money or taken the weight of the year, but it doesn't materially change the way that I live.

And I, I think that's the same for a guy like Webayama.

It would be the same for a guy like Jayson Tatum down the line, and it's the same for a guy fundamentally.

Like LeBron James, and this is not a pro owner's argument because the owners don't get the money.

50, another player , it means that the other, another player gets the money.

That's the thing.

And by the way, I've had the league office talk to me about this, and I'm like, no, we never said that it was the owners keeping the money.

It's that, yes, that means a different player will be getting a larger proportion of the money, which is also, by the way, fine too if a guy who's a little bit less talented than you, but is part of the reason why you get to win, gets a little more of the money and that's OK guys are like.

These top guys, and we're going off in a different direction here, but these top guys, these top guys are all underpaid.

Like, like Victor Wabayama is worth twice as much as he's being paid.

LeBron James is one of the most criminally underpaid people right now.

He's the most underpaid player in sports history at $4 billion.

The NBA changed their schedule because of him going to Philadelphia.

The money that he has brought into the league, he will never, Steph Curry, they will never have made enough money compared to how much other people are making off of them.

Of course not compared to the rest of us.

I'm not saying that they're underpaid as humans, but in terms of the money that they're bringing in proportionately and that, you know, sometimes things, I know this is crazy to say in America, but things are more important than money, and I think having these moments, these championships, guys talk about, look, we just saw the 2016 Cavs take this ridiculous trip across Europe and, you know, wherever those guys look like they were having the best time.

If you ask them each, I don't know how much that trip actually cost all of them, but if you ask them who had it to be like, oh, will you kick in an extra million for this or whatever, they'd say absolutely, you can't buy that.

You can't buy it.

You can't buy those moments with those guys.

And, and I just think that now that salaries have gotten so high, and again this is an extension of when I turned to Tracy McGrady in 2016, 10 years ago, and said how much is enough?

And I think we're finally seeing how much is enough.

Yeah, I, I think I'm, I'll be very curious to see how, if this trend with the Brunson, the Wimbayama stuff, if it continues, teams will talk to these guys with the guys, and I think it all comes down to the trust with the organization, right?

Like Wimbayama trusts that the Spurs are gonna be able to use that money, use that flexibility, and do.

Good things with it's gonna make his life easier.

Maybe it's bringing back Luke Cornett at some point or another big to play alongside him.

If you can convince a guy that it's in their best basketball interest to give them a financial break, not just gonna take less money to like keep you out of the luxury tax.

Like that's not what it's about.

But, you know, using that money for future flexibility, uh, that's gonna be important.