LeBron James‘ impending free agency isn’t hanging over the Cleveland Cavaliers as heavily as it was during the offseason, but it’s impossible to think about the future of the team without considering that their star forward can leave in a few months. It’s a unique situation, as LeBron wants to compete for rings, but reports indicate he has interests outside of basketball that aren’t in Cleveland.
Plenty of people think he won’t leave the Cavaliers for the second time, but as Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today Sports reports, the Philadelphia 76ers are going to try to convince him to become part of the process. Zillgitt wrote that there are executives around the league who believe that Philadelphia is going to make a push for the best player in the world.
If James, who can become a free agent after this season, decides to leave the Cavaliers, he could – and should – consider the 76ers, and executives around the league believe Sixers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo will attempt to sign James.
The Sixers are an intriguing possibility, and if James’ goal remains competing for championships and Cleveland is no longer the place, the Sixers can make a compelling case.
Of course, this should be taken with something of a grain of salt, because there are 29 teams in the league that would love to add LeBron if he decides to leave Cleveland and it’s feasible to add him. Basically, Colangelo is hardly the only executive who will want to sit down and pitch their team to LeBron.
But as Zillgitt writes, Colangelo is one of the executives who can conceivably make a really intriguing pitch. The Sixers’ young core may be the best in the league, and adding LeBron James to the duo of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid (and, potentially, Markelle Fultz) would be fascinating.
Any team that has LeBron can win the Eastern Conference, but getting him on the Sixers would speed up whatever timetable to compete for a ring that the team is on. It also gives him the opportunity to slide into a reduced role as he ages, as Philly has young stars who can take the reigns from him when that time comes. And as for the off the court stuff, he’d be in a place where he can do plenty of non-basketball things, although Philly isn’t exactly Hollywood if he wants to continue his movie career, which has been reported.
The Sixers aren’t unique in their desire to bring LeBron on board, but they are unique in their ability to offer the opportunity to win now and in the future with the roster they have in place. A lot has to happen before we even get to free agency, so this is all noise for now even if a marriage between the two sides would be fun.
(Via USA Today Sports)
