LeBron James completely shocked the NBA world after choosing to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers and many insiders around the league are absolutely baffled.
LeBron took the largest paycut in NBA history to join Philly – after earning $52.63M with the Lakers – he’ll now earn around $3.88M per season with the 76ers.
Granted, he would have had to have taken a massive paycut whichever team he chose – but STILL. Crazy stuff.
Around the league, one of the biggest concerns is that Philly now have too many dominant ball players and not enough depth.
“The Sixers are banking on their current squad following the old-school Big 3 era, but with a Big 5 instead,” SJack Simone of the Boston Sports Journal said. “They added talent for the sake of adding talent, hoping the math will add up to a championship. But that would require playing basketball on paper instead of in person.”
A rival executive told Howard Beck of The Ringer, “Good luck. They do not have any role players on their team now. All those guys want and need the ball. I’m not sure any will want to sacrifice.”
“Somebody will have to check their ego at the door,” another team executive told Beck, “and I don’t see Joel or Bron being the ones to do it.”
Michael Pina of The Ringer wrote that the Sixers’ new starting five has “an egregious amount of skill, power and athleticism.”
But thinks LeBron’s choice doesn’t even “guarantee a top-six seed” for the 76ers.
“For the past month, I’ve been of the mind that James’s decision wouldn’t move the league’s needle in a meaningful way; he’s debatably a top-20 player in a highly competitive playoff picture,” Pina wrote. “While his decision is extremely surprising, undeniably a good thing for Philadelphia, and a bad thing for the Cavs, Heat, Warriors, and any other team that thought they were in the mix, I still feel that way.”
What do you think?
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