{"id":794762,"date":"2026-07-24T15:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794762\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:39:16","slug":"lebron-james-lands-with-76ers-nba-superstar-picks-philly-over-cavs-heat-in-shocking-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794762\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James lands with 76ers: NBA superstar picks Philly over Cavs, Heat in shocking move"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a>\u00a0is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>, he announced Friday in a shocking move. The move, after three-plus weeks of free agency, comes after James’ eight-year run with the\u00a0Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>\u00a0ended on June 30\u00a0when he informed the team he planned to pursue other options<\/a>\u00a0hours before the start of the official free-agency period. Now, the 41-year-old James will put on his fourth NBA<\/a> uniform as he attempts to end a 43-year championship drought in the City of Brotherly Love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This marks the fourth time James has changed teams via free agency as he enters his 24th season. In 2010, he left the\u00a0Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>\u00a0to join the Heat<\/a>. In 2014, he returned to Cleveland after a successful run in Miami that included those two championships. After leading the Cavaliers to their first title in 2016, he departed for the Lakers in 2018. Now, James will attempt to make it four-for-four as he tries to lead Philadelphia to its first championship since 1983, when Moses Malone famously predicted that the team would go “fo’, fo,’ fo'” with sweeps in all three rounds of the postseason and came just a single game short.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time the 76ers have attempted to acquire James. In 2018, they met with his agent, Rich Paul, during the brief free agency that ended with James joining the Lakers. At that point, the 76ers were not far removed from their infamous “Process” and had just reached the playoffs for the first time with Joel Embiid<\/a> leading the way.<\/p>\n

Now, Embiid is a former MVP and arguably the least important starter on the team. When Paul shared a whiteboard of options he and James were considering<\/a>, only one player had a star next to his name: Philadelphia starting point guard Tyrese Maxey<\/a>. The 76ers just acquired Jaylen Brown<\/a> in a blockbuster trade with the Boston Celtics<\/a>. Last year’s No. 3 overall pick, VJ Edgecombe<\/a>, is an emerging superstar. At least on paper, adding James gives the 76ers one of the most talented starting lineups in NBA history, and one that is, just as importantly, as well-equipped to manage Embiid’s frequent absences as possible.<\/p>\n

Though Philadelphia lacks a second, established big man, this team has more depth than most rosters with this much star power. New president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, who, coincidentally enough, was the runner-up to James as Ohio’s Mr. Basketball in 2001, brought ace defender Dean Wade<\/a> with him from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The 76ers got a steal in Anfernee Simons<\/a> on the free-agent market as their primary bench scorer at just $5.3 million. With young players like Labaron Philon<\/a>, Dominick Barlow and Adem Bona<\/a> coming up as well, the 76ers should have everything they need to meaningfully contend for a championship. In leaving Los Angeles, James apparently did not feel confident that the Lakers could offer him the same.<\/p>\n

The relationship between James and the Lakers reportedly began to fray around the team’s failed acquisition of\u00a0Russell Westbrook<\/a>, but the event that truly set this move in motion came a year after those 2024 trade negotiations. At the 2025 deadline, the Lakers landed Luka Don\u010di\u0107 in a deal with the\u00a0Dallas Mavericks<\/a>. That moved their timeline away from James and\u00a0Anthony Davis<\/a>, who was shipped out to Dallas in the blockbuster Don\u010di\u0107 trade. When James opted into the final year of his contract last season, Paul released a statement indicating some measure of displeasure with the direction that the Lakers were moving in.<\/p>\n

“LeBron wants to compete for a championship,” Paul told ESPN at the time. “He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. We are very appreciative of the partnership that we’ve had for eight years with (governor) Jeanie (Buss) and (general manager) Rob (Pelinka) and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.”<\/p>\n

There were rumblings at the time that James might pursue a trade, but the 76ers weren’t in a position to deal at that point. Their only viable matching salary would have been for Embiid or\u00a0Paul George<\/a>, both of whom would have impeded the Lakers’ cap space plans. James ultimately remained in Los Angeles last season, and it seemed as though he and the team turned a corner when they went 15-2 in March. However, injuries to Don\u010di\u0107 and\u00a0Austin Reaves<\/a>\u00a0(who recently\u00a0signed a four-year, $185 million<\/a>\u00a0max extension) robbed James and the Lakers of the chance to compete seriously for a championship last spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

James led the Lakers past the\u00a0Houston Rockets<\/a>\u00a0in the first round before their season ended in a second-round sweep at the hands of the\u00a0Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>. Once again, questions arose over his future. The Lakers had the capacity to create more than $50 million in cap space. Doing so, however, would mean renouncing their Bird Rights to James. They could have potentially used some of their money to re-sign James, but as far as is publicly known, no offer was made before free agency. LeBron preferred not to wait and find out what the Lakers were doing or how interested they would be in a ninth season together. On the morning free agency began, James informed the Lakers that he would not be returning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the Lakers wouldn’t have had the money to make him a substantial offer anyway. They kicked off free agency with a series of stunning moves headlined by a four-year, $130 million sign-and-trade agreement to land\u00a0Utah Jazz<\/a>\u00a0center\u00a0Walker Kessler<\/a>. They followed that move up by signing\u00a0Quentin Grimes<\/a>,\u00a0Sandro Mamukelashvili<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Collin Sexton<\/a>, effectively resetting their team around Don\u010di\u0107 and Reaves.<\/p>\n

The Lakers felt they needed an all-out youth movement to realistically compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs<\/a> moving forward. The 76ers went the other way, threading the needle beautifully between their existing core and splashy external additions. James is 41, more than twice Edgecombe’s age, with Brown, Embiid and Maxey slotting neatly between them. Philadelphia has set itself up to win both now and later, giving James a realistic contender for as long as he decides to keep playing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James\u00a0is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers, he announced Friday in a shocking move. The move, after three-plus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,185,95951,26553,15761,30703,35365,95950,95952,6,207],"class_list":["post-794762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-lebron-james","tag-lebron-james-76ers","tag-lebron-james-contract","tag-lebron-james-free-agency","tag-lebron-james-next-team","tag-lebron-james-rumors","tag-lebron-james-signs","tag-lebron-james-sixers","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia-76ers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116975708829761166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}