Throughout the first week of Sixers training camp, “sacrifice” has been the main buzzword.
At media day, LeBron James spoke about the need for “collective sacrifice” and how that’s often misconstrued as a negative. Jaylen Brown concurred, saying that sacrifice “has its perks and its benefits.” Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe all echoed the need to be we-first, not me-first.
There’s still widespread skepticism about whether they’ll live up to that pledge, though.
Michael Pina of The Ringer recently described the Sixers as “a talent-packed superteam that has a sky-high ceiling and a floor low enough to knock on the gates of NBA hell.” Joe Vardon of The Athletic, whom Brown shut down on media day when he asked about which player would be the “alpha” of the Sixers this year, wrote that the personalities on this year’s Sixers “makes the situation in Philadelphia a potentially combustible one.”
If media day and the first few days of training camp are any indication, the Sixers will be under far more scrutiny this season than they have been in recent years, which is already a high bar to clear. The typical ups-and-downs of the 82-game regular season will be magnified by local and national media alike. The potential pitfalls are obvious.
Then again, Embiid said something on media day that deserves far more attention than it’s received thus far.
“I’m extremely excited for this team,” he told reporters. “We’ve got the right mix of veteran leadership, younger guys, and everybody being on the same page. I feel like we might have some ups and downs, but we’re gonna get there.”
That might be the secret sauce of this year’s Sixers, who look like a superteam on paper.
On the Mind the Game podcast, LeBron and Steve Nash recently discussed what constitutes a superteam. They agreed on a definition of “a collection of players and personalities that have had a lot of success,” but Nash added that “the reality is, it’s not the names; it’s where are they at this stage of their career?”
Nash continued:
“For example, as great as you are, you’re not going to Philly saying, ‘Give me the ball and everyone watch me.’ Cause you have an understanding, like, I can play whatever role. And there will be times when I’m, ‘OK, I need the ball now.’ And there will be times when you’re like, ‘Tyrese is fine, JB’s fine, Joel is fine.’ And you’re able to accept, control, mentor, direct from a different position. That’s not always the case. That’s a big part of this. Where is a player at mentally in his career? How are the personalities? Who’s the leader? How do it work? Cause I think what happens is, a lot of teams that have had multiple players with success, it’s almost like their personalities are bumping into each other. How do we get someone to declare to be the leader? Are the other guys accepting? Or is it natural? ‘I’m quite happy not to be the leader, he’s a natural leader, he can be leader.’ Whatever it may be. So I think there’s so many variables when you put these things together.”
It’s entirely possible that the “alphas” question is what derails this year’s Sixers. But where each of the starters is in his respective career might also be their saving grace.
At some point, LeBron’s fuckery truly won’t go on for much longer. After all, the man is turning 42 in December. He knows this might be his last chance to win a fifth ring. Embiid has never won a title before, and LeBron said helping to get him over the hump was a main reason why he chose to sign with the Sixers this summer. Embiid also told ESPN’s Malika Andrews that he no longer wants to win a title, he needs to win one.
Brown spent the entire offseason having his on-court impact and his character questioned. He should go into this season eager to prove those critics wrong by being adaptable and willing to embrace whichever role the Sixers need him to fill. Meanwhile, Maxey has already proved his ability to operate both on and off the ball during his time in Philly. And between the Ben Simmons and James Harden sagas, he’s experienced a career’s worth of drama only six years into his NBA tenure.
Some—including Draymond Green—have questioned whether VJ Edgecombe could get lost in the shuffle amidst all of the big names in Philly this year. However, Maxey and LeBron have both downplayed that, saying Edgecombe will be a critical factor for the Sixers, particularly in transition. Edgecombe has also already made it clear that he isn’t afraid to hold his new teammates accountable, particularly on defense.
Perhaps the biggest thing working in the Sixers’ favor this year is LeBron’s gravitas. If one of the greatest players of all time was willing to take a veteran-minimum contract to sign with your team, that is the textbook definition of sacrifice. The 22-time All-Star should be a tone-setter from the jump, particularly since he knows what it takes to win a championship in this league. (Four of them, to be exact.)
He isn’t the only former champion on this roster, though. Brown won a title with the 2023-24 Celtics, while Kentavious Caldwell-Pope sports a pair of championship rings, including one that he won with LeBron on the 2019-20 Lakers. They can help instill championship habits from the jump, which the Sixers haven’t always had in years past.
That isn’t to say the Sixers won’t experience bumps in the road. LeBron fully anticipates that they will. In fact, he’s looking forward to it.
“You’ve gotta go through shit,” he said on Mind the Game. “And I hope we go through a three-game losing streak, I hope we go through some of those moments where we get some shit out on the table. We go through a couple games where you know, it was a two-point game and who was taking the shots, who was making the plays, we don’t quite know, we’ve gotta figure it out.
“That’s all part of it. I had the same thing my first year in Miami, I had the same thing the first year when I went back to Cleveland, myself, Kyrie and Kev. Those are some of the moments that we have to be able to go through some real, live battle moments, in the fight, in order to know really who we are and what we want to become. We’ve gotta peel the onion. We have to.”
The New York Knicks went through the same travails last year. A 2-9 stretch from Dec. 31 through Martin Luther King Jr. Day had Karl-Anthony Towns hunting Zillow for houses in Milwaukee just in case the Knicks traded him for Giannis Antetokounmpo, as he later told Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. After falling into a 2-1 series deficit against the Atlanta Hawks in the opening round of the playoffs, they turned it around and reeled off one of the most dominant runs in recent playoff history en route to a title.
The Sixers’ journey to a potential championship this year might not look the same as what the Knicks went through last year. But if Nash is correct about what constitutes a superteam, the Sixers might benefit from having landed most of their stars at a time in their respective careers where they’ve already cemented themselves as some of the NBA’s best players.
Individual accolades shouldn’t matter anymore. All that’s left is to win.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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