LeBron James' 76ers Debut: Can Philly's Superstars Mesh?

You know, I got to start it in the city of brotherly love here, man. This era now of LeBron James taking the final chapter to Philadelphia here. What's your take on that, man? I mean, impact. I mean, Embiid in the last, what is it, three years now has not played more than 39 basketball games. You know, you go back to his MVP season when he played more. I mean, how do you see this thing playing out here in Philly? First of all, Dan, good to see you, as always. We were just talking backstage before we get to the basketball, man. What a time to be alive as a sports fan, huh? baseball we're gonna have the first world series winner ever in history for one of these two franchises college football was crazy this last weekend nfl was crazy this last weekend and as you mentioned probably my favorite association of all the nba is back as well so what a time to be alive as a sports fan everybody take a breath and take it in baby but yeah i um it's really crazy this sixers team has been talked about a lot in the offseason and i've been a big lebron guy my entire life i was with him when he got drafted in the Cavs and obviously followed him his entire career and there was a lot of shock waves when he decided to quote-unquote take his talents once again to Philadelphia and then obviously the Jalen Brown domino dropped as well so it's really fascinating to see what's going to happen with this team that has definitely pushed all of their chips into this particular window as you mentioned with the Embiid health with what LeBron's going to bring to the table you obviously already have a superstar in Tyrese Maxey and oh by the way you have a budding young developing player as well that's got superstar potential in BJ Edgecomb so how these guys are going to mesh i said it in the offseason we're going to find out today in their first game what is this going to look like what's the mixture going to be what's their chemistry going to be like on the court because i mean if you have eyeballs and you're a basketball fan these are five of the best players in the nba at their various positions on a given night so if this works this is going to be really fun in Philly if it doesn't it's going to be a talking point all season but you know they're got to go into New York tonight man they got to go into the mecca and they got to watch these guys hang the banners for the first time in a long time so it's gonna be a fascinating first game and two teams that also really don't like each other anyway uh playoff rematch from last season um and something that i think New York Knicks fans have been looking forward to all summer long so a really interesting matchup and excited to get the NBA back going especially what we're going to see tonight in the Garden one more dynamic here too that LeBron is going to be facing for the first time maybe since he had Erik Spoelstra when he was with the Miami Heat. Nick Nurse's role in this and putting all these pieces together here, I mean, how important is he going to be? Because you just mentioned, you know, what's the role of LeBron going to be? What's Maxi? Is he going to be the centerpiece of this thing? Or is it going to be Embiid? Can you build around that? So his importance is going to be big in moving these chess pieces around. No doubt. I think the X factor for this team, everybody's looking on the court with how these guys are going to play and how they're going to mesh. But I think you're right. I think the X factor for me is how is Nick Nurse going to manage this roster how is he going to manage minutes how is he going to make sure that everybody is you know happy you know there's the old adage the metaphor that a lot of people hate to lean into but there's only one basketball you can't you can't everybody can't take all the shots everybody can't be the guy um but if these guys are able to put their egos aside if these guys are able to buy into a system that they feel like is working offensively but also defensively like you look at this this team right now the way that they're constructed and LeBron James is obviously in all different has been an all defensive player in his career but he's almost 43 years old he's not that same defensive presence like he was previously and Embiid is a good defensive player but he can't stay on the court long enough to impact the game defensively so what is this team going to do defensively i think Nick Nurse is going to have the challenge of not only pressing the buttons correctly offensively but also pressing the buttons correctly how this team is going to defend so if you get this team bought in and if Nick Nurse can make sure to press those buttons It's going to go well in Philly this year. If it doesn't, though, I think that the wheels could start to fall off pretty quickly on the Nick Nurse leading this train down the road. So it's definitely something to watch. And I think you're right. The X factor is definitely how Nurse is going to lead these guys offensively and defensively.