LeBron James’ maddening process was everything the Sixers needed
There is a lot of political capital in the fact that LeBron chose the Sixers. It will be fascinating to see how the whole thing will look on the court — and what part James will play.
LeBron James chose the Sixers the only way he could.
By letting everyone think there was no way he would.
It all makes a little more sense now, doesn’t it? The weeks of deliberations, the radio silence, the professions of ignorance from those close to James, the cryptic dispatches from the Man Behind the (Recording Studio) Curtain. For nearly a month, the world watched and waited and speculated amid a maddening self-muzzling interrupted only by the occasional communication via proxy. What we knew came almost entirely from a handful of podcast episodes where Rich Paul sounded more like a bystander than James’ agent and confidant.
Eyes were rolled. Deep breaths were sighed. Every lapsed news cycle was another shell in the stockpile of the critics and skeptics and purists who prefer brands of basketball to basketball brands. James’ most hostile audience has always been those who would rather live in a world where the Greatest of All Time is not first and foremost a business, man. But let’s give them their due. Even someone who is unbothered by the primacy of the 1099 in sports could have found their patience tested by James’ month-long melodrama.
» READ MORE: LeBron James explained why he picked the Sixers. Here are four other factors that may have helped.
In hindsight, James actions seem perfectly reasonable. This wasn’t attention-seeking behavior. It was the private torment of a man who was about to choose, via his own free will, to move from Los Angeles to Philadelphia.
But it is deeper than that. Everybody involved needed it to go down this way. The significance of James’ signing with the Sixers is that he had every reason not to. He had other options, all of whom had won championships within the last decade-and-a-half. They had superstars, some of the greatest to ever play the game: Steph Curry, Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden.
They had stronger personal ties, more spotlight appeal. They had the tech scene, the outdoors, the party scene. James said he was looking for basketball bliss. Which means there is a lot of political capital in the fact that he chose the Sixers. The basketball is all they had to offer.
It’s perfectly valid to question whether James at 42 years old will create the on-court impact worthy of the hoopla surrounding his decision. There are plenty of scenarios where the sum of the parts exceeds the whole. That’s true even before you factor in age and injury. In James, Jaylen Brown, and Joel Embiid, the Sixers have three players who are accustomed to having the loudest voice in the room. In Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, they have two young players who have been plagued by bouts of deference when sharing the court with more established veterans.
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Yet, therein lies the significance of James’ deliberate evaluation of his options. The great general Charles de Gaulle once said that silence is the ultimate weapon of power. For weeks, everyone wondered what he would decide, and why. They thus imbued his ultimate decision and explanation with a tremendous amount of power. It meant something when he finally picked Maxey, and Edgecombe, and Brown, and, yes, Embiid. Everybody assumed James wouldn’t pick the Sixers because they were the Sixers. But he did pick them, which automatically makes them something nobody thought they were before.
Intentional or not, James’ decision-making process has empowered both his new organization and his new teammates before he has even arrived.
» READ MORE: How LeBron’s career led him to the Sixers — and how he performed at each stop along the way
You probably saw the social media video Maxey released in the wake of James’ signing. It was just a few seconds of him yelling spastically. You have to think that there was a little bit of that going on inside Brown and Embiid as well. At various points over the last few years, both players have allowed their veils to slip from their insecurities. Brown, passed over for the Olympic team after winning NBA Finals MVP, second fiddle to Jayson Tatum, inefficient, overpaid, not a real superstar.
Embiid, injured, maybe finished, soft, selfish, supplanted by Maxey and Edgecombe as the heart and soul of a franchise. Who knows how those insecurities would have played in a power vacuum like that which could have existed without an unquestioned adult in the room. Insecurity is mostly thirst for validation. To be good enough for the best is a heck of a quench.
Part of me wonders whether LeBron’s real attraction to the Sixers is an opportunity to lead. Not that he hasn’t always led, in both spirit and example. But the Sixers offer him a unique opportunity.
More than any of the teams that pursued him this offseason, maybe even more than any team he has been on to this point, the Sixers were a team who genuinely needed exactly a player and a person like the ones James is right now. It will be fascinating to see how the whole thing will look on the court, and what part James will play. Don’t be surprised if his biggest impact has already been made.
