Everyone deserves their shot at happiness.
How many athletes have chosen to search for it in Philadelphia?
Credit to LeBron James, who has forged some new and interesting paths for himself over his (double-checks bball-reference.com) 23-year NBA career.
He made THE DECISION to leave his home in northeast Ohio for Miami 16 years ago, a move that made perfect sense for a then-25-year-old looking to spread his personal and professional wings, even if announcing a breakup with your hometown team on national television was, in the end, a bit of an own goal.
He made what at the time seemed like an all-time, headline-making move when he returned to Cleveland, this even after Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert took to the team website to write a letter in comic sans font where he had referred to James’ choice to leave Cleveland in the first place as a “cowardly act of betrayal.”
It was as hero-making choice as a modern athlete could possibly undertake — leaving the glittering shores of South Beach (and a very mad Pat Riley) for the winter cold of rust-belt Cleveland, eventually leading the Cavs to their first championship in franchise history and the first title of any kind for ‘The Land’ in 50 years.
Then it was off to Los Angeles, which seemed like his final destination, following a road lit by NBA greats before him, from Wilt Chamberlain to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Shaquille O’Neal. When he led the Lakers to their last championship in 2020, it seemed like James was going to become forever part of the firmament of the NBA’s most glamourous franchise. His march to the league’s all-time scoring record (formerly held by Abdul-Jabbar) seemed to cement it.
But sports is the ficklest of businesses, the ultimate venue for the ‘what-have-you-done-for-me-lately’ school of relationship management. The Lakers haven’t been to the NBA Finals since James led them to their title and really haven’t been a threat to make it out of the second round in the West.
Even in a season where he turned 41, James remained one the of the NBA’s best players, earning all-star recognition and putting up an impressively efficient 20.9-point, 6.1-rebound, 7.2-assist stat line on 51.5-per-cent shooting. He did it while reconfiguring his game as a complementary piece to the new apple of the Lakers’ eye, 27-year-old Slovenian star Luka Doncic, who led the league in scoring and finished fourth in MVP voting.
But the Lakers were ready to move on, wanting to spend the $50 million they paid James last season to better reconfigure the roster around Doncic’s talents.
We’ll see about those choices.
What transpired made James the freest of NBA free agents. Since there was nowhere he could both win and earn what his performance suggested he was worth, his mission became finding his ‘basketball happiness’. He had one last turn at being the NBA’s biggest off-season story because, suddenly, the greatest player of 21st century (no one is debating that, right?) was available to any team in the NBA.
This was not like 2010 when teams across the league were working furiously on their rosters and salary cap to make room for a player who has always been a bargain, even on a maximum contract.
Even in the hard cap-esque second-apron era, every team in the league can sign a player to a veteran minimum deal as long as they have a roster spot.
Sure league business was on hold as teams waited to see what James might do and what dominos could fall as a result, but it wasn’t like he was holding teams hostage or blowing up rosters.
This was James weighing his options, trying to see what his basketball happiness really meant.
Did it mean being close to his family in Los Angeles? Returning to Cleveland to end his career where it started? Patching things up with Riley and the Heat and joining Giannis Antetokounmpo? Trying to supervise recess in Minnesota with Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball?
The basketball cognoscenti dreamed on a pairing with Nikola Jokic in Denver, a meeting of two of the greatest basketball minds to ever step on wood.
In the end he chose … Philadelphia, for the grand total of $8 million over two years, a minimum contract. He’ll earn $3 million less than Gradey Dick this season.
Can he find happiness in a city where they booed Santa Claus, and used to have a holding cell for unruly Eagles fans built into the stadium?
Can he do it an Eastern Conference where the New York Knicks will be defending their championship and as many as 11 teams – the Kawhi Leonard-led* Toronto Raptors among them – see themselves as worthy of a top-six finish?
There is a basketball case for it. The Sixers, who lost in the second-round this past May, are stacked with talent, with James joining recently acquired Jaylen Brown, the rising Tyrese Maxey, the athletic marvel that is second-year guard VJ Edgecombe and the most tragic tease in basketball: Big man Joel Embiid, who vacillates from being a generational player when even remotely healthy to leading the league in games not played due to injury.
Perhaps most importantly, there is a legacy case for it: The Sixers are one of the NBA’s most deeply rooted franchises, with a history that includes Dolph Schayes, Hal Greer, Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson. But the team hasn’t won a title since 1983, when Hall of Famer Moses Malone joined forces with Erving.
James helping the Sixers to their next championship while earning the fifth of his career with his fourth team in his age-42 season would only add to a resume that already has him in conversations as the greatest basketball player who has ever lived.
Hopefully that is a level of basketball happiness that will allow him to retire fulfilled and at peace.
There are not many athletes who would have chosen Philadelphia to find their professional Zen, but James is an athlete like no other.
Maybe he can write a Hollywood ending to his career, despite not being in L.A.
