HBSE president Bob Myers calls LeBron’s choice to pick the Sixers his ‘hardest path’
Former Sixers coach Brett Brown also shared that he is happy to see Joel Embiid and Philly have a contender.
Did choosing Philadelphia mean LeBron James chose the hardest path for his final decision in the NBA?
Bob Myers, Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment president of sports, said he believes so on the Cousins podcast with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady. If James had returned to Miami or Cleveland, there would have been minimal expectations, Myers said, pointing out that the Sixers star already achieved at the highest level in those stops.
Instead, Myers argued, he opens himself up to more scrutiny by heading to a new destination for a shot at winning.
“He goes back to Cleveland, he’s made, man,” Myers said. “There’s only one reason [to come to Philadelphia]. It’s to win. It wasn’t because I played there before, or I grew up there, I want to play with my friend. It was because I want to win. So, I’m going to go where I want to go because it gives me the best chance to win.”
Brett Brown
James’ decision to come to Philadelphia is an “endorsement” of where the Sixers are and the roster they have built, after over a decade of The Process, said Brett Brown, who was part of the Sixers’ last chase for James in 2018.
The only Sixer remaining from Brown’s time coaching the team is Joel Embiid, the centerpiece of The Process. Brown coached perhaps the Sixers’ most competitive championship team, the 2017-18 squad that ultimately fell to the Raptors in Game 7 of the 2019 Eastern Conference semifinals, following Kawhi Leonard’s miracle buzzer-beater.
Brown was fired by the Sixers in 2020. He never managed to acquire the third star he felt the squad needed alongside Embiid and Ben Simmons after Jimmy Butler’s departure. After the team’s huge summer, which included the acquisition of James and Jaylen Brown, he said the upcoming years will be “fantastic” for the city.
“And you know what?” Brown told Liberty Ballers. “Down deep, I’m really happy for Joel. It’s an opportunity, maybe the last, that he can do what I know down deep he wants to do — and that’s to be remembered as a champion. There’s a side of me that thinks like that as it relates to my old days with Philadelphia, and Joel especially.”
