Jabari Walker is unlikely to be in the Sixers’ rotation to start the 2026-27 season.
As a guy who had to work his way up from a two-way spot to a standard deal last season, he understands his role is simply to be ready, no matter what the team asks of him.
“I’m more in the mindset of just doing what I can every day to be an asset to this team,” Walker said. “These are my brothers at the end of the day. … I have a relationship with all of them, so it’s something bigger than just being a teammate.”
While
Walker’s mentality is ideal for the 14th guy on the roster, it was a sentiment shared by many on media day Monday — including from arguably the best player to ever walk the earth, LeBron James.
VJ Edgecombe, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft who was named to the All-Rookie First Team, has been a topic of conversation. How will Edgecombe adjust his game while still developing alongside such a star-studded team?
James made a simple point — everyone will have to adjust.
Including the 41-year-old, 22-time All-Star.
“I think with the group of guys, no one mentioned that everybody’s role will probably be different,” James said. “And that’s for the greater good, if we want to accomplish something that’s really, really important. Like if we say that we want to be something special, there will be a collective sacrificing in a good way. Sometimes in sports, people hear sacrificing … people start thinking negatively about it. It’s not a negative thing.”
Every player, including the team’s stars, shared that sentiment. When Jaylen Brown was asked who would be the “alpha” on this Sixers team by a national reporter, Brown dismissed the question immediately. After all, even the person who came up with the theory of the “alpha wolf” has since debunked his own research. In fact, we’ve learned wolf packs are simply regular families, doing whatever is necessary for survival.
Maybe not an apples-to-apples comparison to a professional basketball team, but everyone has to eat. In the case of the Sixers, they’ll be looking to wins over stats for nourishment.
“Like [James] said, sacrifice has a negative connotation, but has its perks and its benefits,” Brown said. “Anytime you’re going for something great, something of high metric, it’s going to take a level of sacrifice. So that’s just the understanding that someone like him, who has been great all his life, he understands sacrifice at a high level, and I agree with him.”
Nobody has felt the pain of the Sixers’ recent failures more than Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Embiid is by far the longest-tenured Sixer. In fact, he’s the third longest-tenured athlete in Philadelphia after the Flyers’ Sean Couturier and Eagles’ Lane Johnson. After Embiid is Maxey. The drop-off to the third longest-tenured Sixer is quite steep.
It’s obvious they’re willing to scale back in any capacity in order to finally get over the second-round hump and win the franchise’s first championship since before LeBron was born.
“One through 17, 18, we got the talent. Whatever,” Maxey said. “But if we’re not willing to sacrifice, we’re not willing to put in the work, it ain’t gonna mean nothing.”
“I think it’s hard to win,” Embiid said. “I haven’t done it. Feel like I know what it takes, but it is hard to win, man. You need that consistency. You need to get guys on the same page. But feel like this year we have that.”
After the first day of training camp, the team’s first full practice together, head coach Nick Nurse didn’t like the use of the word “sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice just seems like such a negative term to me,” Nurse said at practice Monday, “and I’d rather like really emphasize being who you are, right? But maybe we need you to do something super special for our team at this moment, and you have the abilities to do it. Then let’s do it.”
But luckily for him, his players don’t see it that way.
James’ perspective was a little different. Instead of viewing the word “sacrifice” as a negative, why can’t it be a positive?
“So many guys that’s been in our league over the course of my career that’s never made a sacrifice in their career,” James said, “and they average 20, 22 points per game and they’ve had one or two postseason appearances and zero postseason wins. If that’s the way you want your career to be then, that’s fine, everyone has different goals. But I don’t think anybody downstairs or I don’t think anybody in the locker room, have that feeling, or want their career to be like that, or we wouldn’t be here.”
Sacrificing for a greater good is not only positive, but laudable.
From LeBron James to Jabari Walker and every player in between, it’s what the Sixers will have to do to accomplish their ultimate goal.
