LeBron James coming to Philadelphia 76ers

We have more coverage now on this monumental day in Philadelphia sports. LeBron James is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers. Action News' Trish Hartman is live at the team headquarters now in Camden. Big smiles for everybody all around. It's a place where LeBron James will eventually be officially introduced as a member of the Sixers. Trish? Absolutely. We have been wondering if and when the team will address the public and talk about this massive deal for the team and for the city. So far we've reached out to the team this morning they've had no comment and they referred us to those posts that LeBron James posted on social media earlier today breaking the news to everyone that he is coming to Philadelphia and the 76ers. Now over the past few weeks there has been much speculation about what LeBron is going to do, where he's going to take his free agency, would he go to Miami, would he go back to Cleveland, where is he going to wrap up his career. Now LeBron said on X in a series of posts earlier today that this was not about money, it was not about family, it was about grinding and competing and winning. We like that in Philadelphia. He said he's not done playing basketball yet and he thinks Philadelphia is the place to continue doing it. The NBA all-time lead scorer left the Lakers after last season. He said in his post that this time has really allowed him to think about what he wants to do. Now waiting to hear from the team about LeBron coming, about when he is physically going to be here and about how this eight million dollar two-year contract came to be. This is a developing story, there's much to celebrate here in Philadelphia with this news and we will bring you the details when we get them. We're live in Camden, New Jersey Trish Hartman, Channel 6 Action News. Guys back to you. Yeah we need the details, we need the details. Trish thank you. They're working on it. Okay well more on this breaking news LeBron James coming to Philadelphia to join the 76ers. We are joined now by Joe Varden, NBA journalist with The Athletic who has been following of course the anticipation about LeBron's decision. Lots of bets being made on where he would have gone. Joe thank you for joining us and Joe you covered LeBron closely when he played with the Cavaliers. Why do you think he chose to come to Philadelphia instead of returning home to Cleveland? Well I don't know if anybody would catch the irony but I'm wearing a Paris 2024 hat. I covered Team USA for The Athletic and at that time is when LeBron James and Joel Embiid were actual teammates. They won together. I can't say that what happened today stems from their first partnership but it's just a reminder of how crazy things can be in the NBA and how you know partnerships that we never envisioned might come to fruition. You know the people close to LeBron are saying that this was a decision that came down this morning. No one's saying how long LeBron knew that it was going to be Philadelphia but those around him did not know until this morning. LeBron told his agent Rich Paul shortly before the announcement to contact the Sixers and inform them that he had made the decision and that's it. You know so the Cavs are out, Miami's out, Golden State's out, the Timberwolves are out and they heard it the same way we did via social media. And you know Joe you mentioned relationships. We know that LeBron works out with Maxie. He shares the same agent Rich Paul with Maxie. What do you think the relationships will be like once he gets on the squad and how can this help some of the younger players? How can we really build a dynasty off this announcement? Well you're not going to build a dynasty because he's 41 years old. Let me dream Joe, let me dream. My man is 41. True, true. So this is not a dynasty. This is win now or else and like look the the acquisition of Jalen Brown what was that at the start of this month or maybe it was late last month I can't even remember now but that is what vaulted the Sixers into this position, this pole position. They added him for virtually nothing and so now you have Tyrese Maxie who LeBron loves and you have Jalen Brown who's an all-NBA performer and then you have Joe Ellenby who hasn't been healthy for years but when he is healthy there's no one like him in the league. So you throw LeBron in there. He doesn't have the burden to carry the offense. He will have enough energy to be able to contribute on defense. Let's not forget that Nick Nurse is a championship coach who will know how to figure all this out. You talked about how he'll fit in with the locker room. One thing that I am interested in is I mentioned the Olympics earlier. There was a weird moment being around that team. We were in London getting ready to go to the to actual Paris for the Olympics itself and a magazine story from my parent company the New York Times came out and it was an interview that Joel had given to the magazine and he blasted LeBron. He called him old, said a couple other things and LeBron responded to it at practice I think the next day and now last week we have LeBron on stage talking about well trust the process isn't a positive thing and Joel hops on Twitter or X yesterday and says hey how about this for the process and the Lakers will always be Magic and Kobe's team. So there's still this like kind of you know whether it's awkward or it's strange but I do know that Joel personally made several calls to LeBron during this whole process to convince him to come to Philadelphia. So is this an exact fit? I can't say that but you know this is a team that has both youth. Jalen Brown's kind of in the middle in terms of experience and just veteran cachet and then Joel is close to being a contemporary of LeBron. So a nice mix for him at age 41. We will see how this all plays out but this city very excited for this news at the moment. Joe Varden NBA journalist with The Athletic. Thank you so much for hopping on and joining us this afternoon. I'll be right back. You got it. Thanks for having me.