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You Can Drop the Idiotic “There is Only One Ball” Sixers Takes Right Now
By Sean Barnard
Published:
In case you have been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, LeBron James officially chose the Philadelphia 76ers. That’s right. The player many consider the best to ever touch a basketball opted to walk away from the bright lights of Los Angeles to sign the cheapest contract of his career in Philly.
This, along with the offseason trade to bring in Jaylen Brown, catapults the Sixers into the title favorite conversation and provides a spark of life to a franchise that felt it was on life support just a few weeks ago. The feeling of apathy should be officially exiled from the fan base, and Philadelphia will be among the most relevant franchises in all of sports this coming season.
The presumed starting five of Tyrese Maxey, V.J. Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, and Joel Embiid is as good as it gets when it comes to NBA talent and feels more like an NBA 2K forced trade mode as opposed to anything that seems possible in today’s CBA-driven world. Championships are not won on paper, and there will be some growing pains as this star-studded group learns to play together. However, I am here to put a stop to some of the big-brained takes about these pieces not fitting together. The prevailing overreaction and thought from many pundits on social media is the fear that there is only one basketball to go around:
While my war on the nerds who have taken the fun out of sports started with the Jaylen Brown trade, this is more evidence of how many people cannot separate the context of what these numbers mean and why. The databallr Twitter/X account points out in their tweet that the collective usage rate of the new-look starting five, or Rittenhouse 5 as they coined it, adds up to 140% (It is 143.4% if we want to get technical). Aside from this being a mathematical impossibility, the context of these numbers absolutely matters.
Jaylen Brown ranked third in the NBA in usage percentage last year at 35.1% (minimum 500 mins). This was well above his previous career-high of 30.7% and the season prior’s 28.2%. Brown also set a career-high with 21.7 field goal attempts en route to his 28.7 points per game. It’s probably worth acknowledging that the former Finals MVP played just about the entirety of the season without Jayson Tatum and was asked to operate as the lone consistent creator on the Celtics’ roster. It’s also probably worth noting that Brown carried that Boston roster to 15 more wins than their preseason over/under and earned the second seed in the Eastern Conference while juggling this extreme work rate.
Joel Embiid ranked fourth in the league in usage rate at 33.6% last season. The important context here is that Embiid was only able to suit up for 38 regular-season games. It’s true that there were some stylistic differences in the games that Embiid was able to play versus when he could not, and it will be interesting to see how decisions are made about his availability moving forward. But the time he missed had a direct correlation to Tyrese Maxey’s usage rate spiking to 28.6%, which ranked 23rd in the league, and Maxey also led the NBA in minutes per game. This was a notch below the 29.3% he recorded the season before when Embiid was limited to just 19 games. Edgecombe tallied a 19.6% usage rate, which is the lowest figure among this new-look starting five.
The newest and most-relevant piece of this puzzle is how LeBron James fits into the equation. The 22-time All-Star suited up for 60 games last year and finished with a usage rate of 26.2%, which ranked 41st in the NBA. This was the lowest usage rate of James’ career, even while it was inflated due to the injuries that Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves battled. When the Lakers were at full strength, it was pretty evident that James was comfortable and willing to take a backseat in the offense. He attempted a career-low 15.3 FGA last year, with his next fewest field goal attempts per game coming in 2013-14 with the Miami Heat when he attempted 17.6 FGA per game. But Doncic missed 18 games and Reaves missed 22, which forced the four-time MVP to scale up his offensive workload to look more like his athletic prime.
There is no doubt that it will take some time and repetition for this unit to learn to play together. But this is the case if you’re adding a plug-and-play 3-and-D role player as your fifth starter or the potential greatest player of all time. Good players like to play with good players, and there is a common goal that will unite each of them, with this collection of talent having a real chance at a championship.
Embiid has been guilty of playing too much hero-ball for stretches of his career and will need to make some stylistic adjustments. But to be fair to the former MVP, this has largely been driven by there not being effective enough options around him on many iterations of this Sixers team. This is no longer the case. Maxey has at times gotten too shot-hungry and iso-centric in his offensive approach, particularly when Embiid has not been available. But this was largely due to not having other playmakers to lean on, and the changes to the roster around him should be viewed as a solution, not a problem.
It seems pretty evident that James is at a stage of his career where he recognizes it is time for him to take a backseat in the offensive pecking order. This felt like the goal when he first linked up with Anthony Davis in Los Angeles and especially the case following the addition of Luka Doncic. There was a time where James needed every organizational decision to revolve around him, but he has expressed the self-awareness that he is a finishing piece and not a centerpiece throughout this process. This also is a much easier conversation to have when he is joining a team on a veteran’s minimum and not fully building around him as your primary max contract player.
If there is one trait that should be most noted about both Jaylen Brown and LeBron James, it is that they are winners. Brown has a championship ring on his finger, which he earned while winning the Finals MVP and a career winning percentage of 65.3% in the regular season. James has four championship rings to his name, along with four Finals MVPs, and a 64.6% career winning percentage in the regular season. The second-round jokes have gotten old in regard to the 76ers, but there is some truth in the knowledge that how to win was a missing characteristic of this franchise.
This feels especially the case considering each of these key new faces arrives with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Brown was tossed to the side by the franchise he was drafted by and thrived in, exceeding all fair expectations last season and across the length of his career. Being traded to a major rival has to both make the sting a little worse and the motivation a bit higher. James will be playing on the lowest contract value of his entire career, and there was not the level of effort made league-wide to bring him in as was the case in the past. He made it clear in his statement that his goal of coming to Philadelphia is to win another championship, and doing so may be the final feather in his cap to achieve the basketball immortality he desires. There may only be one ball on the court, but the Sixers will find a way to get the most out of it.
Sean Barnard has covered the Philadelphia 76ers and general Philly Sports for over six years in a variety of roles and for multiple outlets. Currently works as a Content Writer for DraftKings Network, Sixers/NBA Insider for Philadelphia's Fox Sports the Gambler, and co-host of Sixers & Phillies Digest on Youtube. Forever Trusting the Process.