The Sixers are going to let LeBron James steer the offense. That much is clear. He’ll bring the ball up, make the reads and set the tone when the situation demands it.
But the real edge may come from how Philadelphia uses him once the halfcourt offense gets packed in.
Nick Nurse said on a new episode of the Takeoff Podcast that he and James talked about “some multi-position situations” before James chose the Sixers.
“I think you slot right in there perfectly. We did talk about some multi-position situations,” Nurse told NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark.
He also pointed to the way the roster fits together.
“I think the most important thing with fit is when you look at it positionally, does it work? You don't have a whole lot of guys that are doing the same thing.
I think it does lay out there pretty well with we got a couple of big wings in Jaylen [Brown] and LeBron. We got the two guards obviously.
Joel [Embiid] in the middle. So I think it lays out initially pretty well.”
That’s the language of a coach who wants James to be the first action in the offense, but not the only one. At 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, he can operate like a forward and still bend a defense in ways most big wings can’t.
One of the most useful ways to tap into that is by putting James into screening actions.
James already knows the value there. In one clip, he screens and rolls into a post-up on the left side, with Tobias Harris sliding to the block on the right side of the paint. James reads the floor immediately and spots Harris losing track of the action as Jake LaRavia sneaks behind him toward the rim.
That kind of setup matters for Philadelphia because it gives Embiid room to work at the foul line, where he has been an exceptional shooter for years. If Embiid’s mid-range gravity pulls the big away from the basket, James suddenly has a lot more space to operate once he gets to the post.
And if Brown or V.J. Edgecombe is waiting in the weak-side corner, their defender only has to turn his head the wrong way for James to make the defense pay.
The other piece is James as a shooting threat. The Sixers can’t afford to ignore that part of his game.
In another clip, he uses what amounts to a brush screen and then pops out. The screen itself is barely a screen at all, but it still creates confusion. Nick Clifford is chasing through, Precious Achiuwa stays below the level and thinks help is covered, and suddenly nobody is clean on the coverage.
It’s not hard to see why. If defenses are willing to give James that much room above the break, he can turn it into either a pull-up chance or a downhill lane. If they don’t, the ballhandler can send it right back to him for a 3 or flow into the next action.
James made that kind of sequence work with Nick Smith Jr. as his partner in the two-man game. It’s easy to imagine the same thing causing bigger problems with Tyrese Maxey in that spot.
The Lakers had something similar in mind against the Raptors. The action got crowded, but the idea was straightforward: James set a ball screen, got the smaller Ja'Kobe Walter on him in Toronto’s switch scheme, and when Collin Murray-Boyles came over to help, Deandre Ayton set a pick for Austin Reaves to flare. James then pitched it back to Reaves for an open 3.
That’s the whole appeal here. James gives you the luxury of using him as the engine, the screener and the release valve. Nurse’s job is to find the right ways to squeeze all of that into one offense.
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