LeBron James has made his free-agency call, and it lands him in Philadelphia on a two-year, $8 million deal with the 76ers. That gives the Sixers a headline-grabbing group that also includes Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe - a starting five that looks loaded on paper.
Loaded, though, is not the same thing as built to work.
There’s no question about the individual names here. Brown and Maxey both just earned All-NBA honors, with Brown finishing sixth in MVP voting last year.
Edgecombe was third in the Rookie of the Year race. Embiid, when healthy, is an All-NBA player.
James is still an All-Star at 41. The talent is obvious.
The problem is that the league has moved on from the kind of team-building this roster suggests. Today’s NBA is driven by depth, fit and role clarity, not simply by stacking stars and assuming the rest will sort itself out.
Philadelphia is leaning into a model that was fashionable in the mid-2010s. That version of the league is gone.
James has lived that old model better than anyone. In Miami, he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
In Cleveland, he paired with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. In each case, the hierarchy was clear.
James was the 1A, the player with the ball when the game tightened up. Wade and Irving accepted the No. 2 role.
Bosh and Love filled in around them as stars willing to become role players.
That kind of arrangement is much harder to pull off now.
The Brooklyn Nets tried to revive the superteam idea with Kevin Durant, Irving and James Harden, and it fell apart. Injuries played a part, but so did the friction that came with trying to make too many big names fit into the same space.
By the end, Harden had asked out, and Durant was on live TV picking All-Star teams and refusing to even say his name. Talent alone didn’t carry the day.
The teams winning now look different. The New York Knicks were led by Jalen Brunson, with Karl-Anthony Towns and elite depth behind him.
The San Antonio Spurs were built around Victor Wembanyama, a clear 1A, and backed by strong depth. The Oklahoma City Thunder had Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two stars comfortable in smaller scoring roles, and elite depth.
The 2024 Boston Celtics had Jayson Tatum and Brown, plus depth and stars who accepted role-player responsibilities.
That’s the formula now: one, maybe two alphas, then a group of players who know exactly what they’re there to do.
Philadelphia is betting on something else. The Sixers are trying to fit too many high-end pieces into the same puzzle, as if adding more talent automatically solves the equation.
It’s the old Big 3 logic, only stretched into a Big 5. That only works if the pieces agree on who leads and who steps back.
And that’s the question hanging over this group: who is the 1A? Or, more to the point, who is willing to give way and let someone else be it?
Right now, the Sixers have four players who could see themselves in that top spot.
Brown is the first one to consider. He just finished a hugely impressive regular season, and after the Celtics’ playoff exit he said on a live stream that this year was his favorite of his career. He had the chance to lead Boston and, in his view, proved the doubters wrong.
In Other News...
Celtics Fans Are Watching Another Contender Learn This Lesson The Hard Way
The NBAs new spending rules keep proving that roster-building is a lot harder than simply paying for talent, and the Celtics have already lived through that reality. Boston took heat for trimming salary and making tough choices, but with the second apron and repeater tax penalties squeezing contenders across the league, that caution looks a lot less like hesitation and a lot more like foresight.
Denver is the latest example of how fast a good team can run into the wall. The Nuggets are operating near the second apron and already seeing the kind of depth erosion that comes with it, which leaves them staring at a summer full of uncomfortable decisions. Even before the market settles, they still have unresolved business in restricted free agency and the kind of cap math that can force a contender to choose between keeping its core intact and staying financially compliant. [Read more 🡒]
LeBrons History With Jaylen Brown Just Got More Awkward
Joel Embiid has already spent years on the record with pointed thoughts about LeBron James, from an old social-media shot to comments before the 2024 Olympics about James not being the same player he once was. So when James recently revisited that history, it added another layer to a relationship that has long carried more edge than most star-to-star exchanges in the league.
What makes it even more interesting from Bostons side is that James also addressed his current dynamic with Jaylen Brown, saying the two are on respectful terms despite Browns past criticism of Bronny James. James went a step further by praising Browns play and saying the Celtics were not getting enough respect, including in the MVP conversation, which only sharpens the sense that this is one of those NBA rivalries where the personal and the professional keep colliding. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Fans Suddenly Have A Real Amari Williams Debate
Amari Williams gave Celtics fans a glimpse of why Boston wanted to keep a close eye on him in Summer League, then reminded everyone how quickly those early impressions can shift. The second-year center opened with a strong showing in an overtime win over Toronto, flashing the kind of size and activity that can make a young big man look like a real find, but the rest of his run was much quieter and left plenty of room for debate about where he stands heading into the next stage of his development.
Williams still has time to change the conversation, and Boston has seen a similar arc before. Baylor Scheierman went through his own uneven Summer League stretch before eventually carving out a regular rotation role, so one rough week in July does not close the book on a player, even if it does make the questions a little louder for Celtics fans waiting to see what comes next. [Read more 🡒]