{"id":794864,"date":"2026-07-24T18:27:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794864\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:27:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:27:35","slug":"lebron-james-chooses-philadelphia-76ers-over-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794864\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James chooses Philadelphia 76ers over Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James<\/a> will play his 24th season of professional basketball with a new team \u2014 but it\u2019s not the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n

James, the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer,<\/a> announced Friday morning that he will play for the Philadelphia 76ers next season in what he said will be his \u201clast decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

Agent Rich Paul told ESPN<\/a> that James is signing a two-year deal with the 76ers worth $8 million.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets launched a campaign to recruit James to Denver<\/a> after he and the Lakers agreed to part ways ahead of the NBA free agency moratorium. James, 41, has friends throughout the Nuggets\u2019 organization, from team president Josh Kroenke<\/a> to lead assistant coach Jared Dudley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He also has deep admiration for three-time MVP center Nikola Jokic. The opportunity to team up with the Serbian big man was a critical selling point in Denver\u2019s pitch to James, who, like Jokic, is regarded as one of the smartest players in the history of the sport.<\/p>\n

The 76ers will be James\u2019 fourth team, following the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers. James has four MVP trophies, four championships, 10 NBA Finals appearances, 21 All-NBA nods, six All-Defensive Team honors and an NBA Cup in-season tournament title. He averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists in 60 games last season.<\/p>\n

With co-stars Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined by injuries, James led Los Angeles to a first-round upset of Houston in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The Cavs, Heat, Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves were among the other teams that reportedly showed interest in signing James as a free agent, though his agent said recently he had been contacted by almost every team in the league.<\/p>\n

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LeBron James will play his 24th season of professional basketball with a new team \u2014 but it\u2019s not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1013,7,305,765,2102,301,187,766,3636,3787,165,185,251,368,189,307,252,6,12902,1220,3269,253,302,66],"class_list":["post-794864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-basketball","tag-cleveland","tag-colorado","tag-contract","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-front-range","tag-injuries","tag-josh-kroenke","tag-latest-headlines","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-luka-doncic","tag-miami-heat","tag-minnesota","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nba-cup","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nuggets","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116976369245404543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794864","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=794864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}