The Sixers are the talk of the NBA. Who would have thought that would have been the case just over two months ago when the euphoria of eliminating the Boston Celtics had been quickly erased at the hands of another rival in the New York Knicks? Well, here we are and almost half of the schedule for the Sixers next season will be seen by a national audience.
It’s really a 180 from a vibes standpoint. The Sixers haven’t even played a game next season, and won’t for about three more months, but basketball
fans both inside and outside of Philadelphia are fascinated by what’s about to happen with the team. By now, we’ve all seen the concerns and doubts expressed about why it won’t work out for Philly in 2026-27. “There’s only one basketball! Look at those usage rates!” Maybe those concerns will be validated when the season starts.
There is probably some truth to the fact that the LeBron James experience is at its apex from the day he picks your team in free agency and after that things get chaotic and James becomes a de facto GM of his new team. But if there’s any fanbase that deserves to overlook those norms, it’s Sixers fans. Joel Embiid has had just about every injury imaginable in his career and some of them have just been bad luck at the wrong times in the playoffs. Philadelphia has had countless executives try over and over again to put the right players around Embiid to make a serious run at an NBA championship.
Now, it’s not just about surrounding Embiid with talent, but it’s about how good the Philadelphia 76ers are at basketball. The entire team is coming together in a way that is forcing pundits around the country to look at the organization in a different lens and that wouldn’t have necessarily happened with some of the other teams James was considering in free agency. Even without James, the mood around the Sixers had already shifted in a positive direction thanks to the Jaylen Brown trade. Getting off Paul George’s contract to bring in a player who’s significantly younger and significantly better than George was a massive shot in the arm for the fans.
Then factor in that a player who is widely-regarded as the second-best to ever play basketball and certainly the best player of the 21st century just chose to finish his career as a Sixer, and how can you be on cloud nine for the next couple months until the games start counting for real? Nothing counts right now and that’s why it’s the perfect time to bask in the spotlight for a few months because it’s a spotlight that no one saw coming.
Provided Philly can live up to the hype, it’s a spotlight that will stay on the franchise certainly for as long as James is a 76er. But what’s the best part of all of this? It’s that the Sixers should be able to sustain success well after James is done playing. They already have a promising backcourt with Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe and we know that Maxey’s connection with James played a key role in James picking Philadelphia. Set to turn 26 at the start of the season, Maxey is only just entering his prime. If he was able to lure James to finish his career in Philadelphia, think about the positive ripple effect he could have on the franchise when it’s time to court the next big superstar towards the end of the decade.
Mike Gansey has really hit a grand slam in his first offseason as president. It’s now up to Nick Nurse and the players to make it all work on the court. But thanks to Gansey’s heavy lifting in the two months he’s been on the job, people all over the country are viewing the Sixers in a far more positive light than they ever have. That’s worth celebrating when you consider how often the Sixers are a national punchline.
