Lightning struck just as Jim Lynam was finishing the ninth hole at Twisted Dune Golf Club in South Jersey on a recent Friday. It came not in the usual way, but in the form of newsflash: LeBron James was going to sign with the Sixers.
A few hours earlier Lynam – an NBC Sports Philadelphia studio analyst for the team and once its coach – had told some people in the clubhouse that while he thought the Sixers once were in the running for LeBron, it appeared their chances had dwindled.
Now those same people
were awaiting him as he approached the clubhouse a second time.
“And,” he said with a laugh, “they jumped me.”
He mentioned that during an appearance last Friday on “After the Buzzer,” a podcast I co-host with fellow journalist Mike Gross. Then he went on to draw a parallel between the way the rest of his day unfolded and the possible mesh among the Sixers’ star-studded cast.
Part of a foursome that opposed two other groups under a scramble format, the 84-year-old didn’t play great.
But, Lynam added, “My team was so strong that I pocketed some of the money.”
That, of course, would be the best-case scenario for the new-look Sixers – that everybody checks their egos at the door, and they cash in next June. But certainly Lynam voiced many of the same concerns others have. About fit. About chemistry. About defense.
The bottom line? They might look great off the tee, but this season will be far from a gimme.
“There’s a lot of things that have to go right for this to work,” Lynam told Mike and me.
Add the 2025-26 usage rates of the likely starters together, and it comes to 142 percent. Clearly something is going to have to give. Clearly everybody is going to have to adjust. And clearly the head coach is going to be under the microscope.
During Friday’s 30-minute interview, Lynam proclaimed himself “a big Nick Nurse fan” and declared that the Sixers boss is “a very adaptable guy.” More than once when Nurse was leading the Raptors to the 2018-19 NBA title, Lynam saw something that surprised him, like a triangle-and-two or some such thing.
Now Nurse will be tasked with maximizing the talents of this group. But in James he has the ultimate cheat code, a guy who is nearing his 42nd birthday and his 24th season. A guy who has seen everything and whose resume speaks volumes.
LeBron chose the Sixers because in his mind they give him the best opportunity to win a fifth ring. Because Joel Embiid and fellow Klutch Sports client Tyrese Maxey pitched him on playing in Philly. And because Mike Gansey pulled off the Jaylen Brown trade.
All that being the case, Lynam said that if he were Nurse, he would approach LeBron and tell him one thing: “Make it work, dude.”
Because a lot of it falls on James, without question. It always has, though he has always been a connective player, always shown a willingness to share. Lynam puts him in a class with Larry Bird and Rick Barry as the best-passing forwards of all time, while at the same time raising these questions: “Is he really a forward? Could we classify him as a guard?”
Even though LeBron stands 6-foot-9 and weighs 250 pounds, it’s a fair point: He plays a position all his own. Last year with the Lakers, for example, he willingly relegated himself to third fiddle when he, Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves shared the floor, though he reserved the right to go get his own whenever the need arose. (His counting stats were 20.9 points, 7.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds per game. Few have done it better at such an advanced age, in any sport. “Tom Brady is the only one that comes to mind,” Lynam said.)
Lynam knows what it is like to coach big personalities, having worked with Charles Barkley during his time as the Sixers’ head coach (1987-92). But LeBron brings as much juice to a locker room as any player in the history of the league. There are ample tales of him playing GM at his various stops, to the point that he even had his son Bronny as a teammate in Los Angeles.
Strictly from an on-court, player-coach standpoint, Lynam said he always operated from the premise that a player, no matter his stature, was willing to be coached.
“That’s one of the things I respected about Charles over the years: Charles let us coach him,” Lynam said, adding that he doesn’t believe James is any different – that he “has shown (through) his play over the years in various settings that that’s what he’s about. He’s about winning.”
The other thing is, LeBron commands so much respect that he will be able to police the locker room. No one is going to want to disappoint him. No one is going to want to be the weak link in the chain.
“His persona is such, and his achievements are such, they go hand in hand,” Lynam said. “You can have all the bravado you want; if you’re not backing it up, nobody’s going to listen to you. But no, this guy, he’s the total package when it comes to what you’re referring to.”
Lynam is most curious as to how Brown will be incorporated into the mix, given the way he carried Boston for most of last season. Surely he won’t get as many touches as he did there. Surely he won’t be free to play as much iso-ball.
At the same time, Lynam concluded that Brown “knows how to play,” and “will be able to fit in and play well with other people despite the setting: ‘Tell me what we’re going to do. Tell me how we’re going to play.’ … Give him the rules. Boom, no problem. It’s done.”
It figures to be the same for Maxey, who always brings a ton of positive energy into the equation. Lynam believes that VJ Edgecombe will likely have to sacrifice some shots, especially in the game-on-the-line situations where he excelled last season, but is high on the second-year man, especially at the defensive end.
And what of Embiid?
Lynam believes the veteran center will still be an offensive force, if and when his balky knees allow him to take the court, but added that Embiid is “no longer the defender that he was when he terrorized the league. … That’s not the same Joel at the defensive end. Nor is LeBron. That’s going to be a very, very big challenge come late May and June – to be able to defend at a championship level.”
One of many.
“There have been teams assembled in the past. … We called them All-Airport,” Lynam said. “They’re All-Airport. Walks through the airport. Everybody’s pointing. ‘Oh, did you see so-and-so? … Look at that guy. … Look at this guy.’ And I got news for you – a lot of those teams never got it right. So we’ll see how it plays out. But it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
He wouldn’t make any predictions beyond that. Certainly the defending-champion Knicks will again be formidable, and San Antonio and Oklahoma City remain the class of the West. If things break right for the Sixers, that is the company they will keep, without question.
“But to me,” Lynam said, “I think the difference in terms of the (top) teams is so, so small. I’ll use the word ‘infinitesimal.’”
He mentioned how OKC was hamstrung by Jalen Williams’ hamstring injury most of last season. He mentioned how the Knicks, as well as they played throughout the playoffs, found themselves trailing the Spurs by 29 in the second half of Game 4 of the Finals before rallying to win.
“How good could this team be?” Lynam said. “I would joke right now with (Jalen) Brunson or Mike Brown: ‘I’m supposed to be scared of you guys? You were down 29 on your homecourt.’”
There are miles to go before we find out how this plays out, and there will be any number of sandtraps for the Sixers to navigate in the meantime. And only then will we learn whether lightning might strike – whether they can cash out or not.
