Category: Deportes

LeBron James is heading to the Philadelphia 76ers, the NBA superstar announced on social media today.

In his posts, James said this will be his “last decision” and that it comes after he strongly considered retirement.

“I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time,” James said.

A four-time NBA champion, James wrote he was “done” when his 23rd NBA season ended and that it was his last with the Los Angeles Lakers.

“I was pretty sure I played my last game. I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and deicide if I still love this game,” James wrote. “I still truly love this game, and I have more to give.”

I thought I was done when the season ended. I wasn’t ready to announce it, and I knew I needed some time to really decide, but I was pretty sure I played my last game. I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and deicide if I still love

— LeBron James (@KingJames) July 24, 2026

out. This is my last decision. I’m not going for money. I’m not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point?

I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning

— LeBron James (@KingJames) July 24, 2026

another championship.

I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time.  

Thank you LA. Miami I’ll forever love and Northeast Ohio will always home!

🙏🏾🫡👑

— LeBron James (@KingJames) July 24, 2026

This will mark the fourth team in James’ career after he previously played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and, most recently, the Los Angeles Lakers. He told the Lakers on June 30 he would not be returning to the team and remained the biggest name in free agency until he announced his decision today.

Per reports, James is set to sign a two-year, $8 million deal. He made nearly $53 million in 2025-26.

“I’m not going for money. I’m not going for family,” James wrote. “What am I really playing for at this point? I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning.”

James joins a 76ers team that has not won an NBA championship since 1983 and has not advanced out of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs since 2001. The 76ers should boast one of the top starting fives in the NBA with fellow All-Stars Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown, the 2024 NBA Finals MVP, a five-time All-Star and the league’s fourth-leading scorer this past season acquired in a stunning offseason deal with the Celtics.

James celebrated his decision on Instagram with a career highlight reel set to Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares,” the adopted sports anthem of city sports teams.

The video ends with the lyric, “hold up, wait a minute. Y’all thought I was finished?” and cuts to a 76ers’ logo.

Fanatics already had his No. 23 jersey on sale for $125 with delivery not expected until the end of August.

Much as James did for Cleveland when he ended a 56-year championship drought for the city by leading the Cavaliers to the title in 2016, he can snap a lengthy title drought for the Sixers.

The Sixers went 45-37 last season and were swept in the second round by the NBA champion New York Knicks.

Most betting sites had the Sixers as 9-1 favorites to win the championship behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, as of Friday afternoon.

Maxey posted an Instagram story of him celebrating in a gym and yelling “what!? what?!” over the news while Brown wrote on X “#throwtheballup.” Brown wrote that in his introductory note to Philadelphia, and it has already been branded on billboards throughout the city.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro even proclaimed Friday as LeBron James Day in the state.

Turned out with the Brown deal, new 76ers team president Mike Gansey — an Ohio prep basketball star with James — was just getting started with his summer of surprises.

James has made clear many times in recent years that more championships are his motivation.

“I don’t know what the future holds for me, obviously, as it stands right now, tonight,” James said after the Lakers’ 115-110 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals ended their season. “I’ve got a lot of time. I’ll go back and recalibrate with my family and talk with them, and when the time goes, obviously you guys will know what I decide to do.

“I’ve done it all. I’ve seen it all. Just being able to compete and trying to win championships, I think that’s a motivating factor.”

The NBA’s oldest active player, James will turn 42 on Dec. 30. He was the first player in league history to log 23 seasons and will add at least one more to that this season. He also became the first player in the league to have a son as a teammate, with Bronny James playing alongside him with the Lakers.

James started his career in Cleveland in 2003 and spent seven seasons with the Cavaliers before heading to Miami for four seasons — where he won his first two NBA titles. He then returned to Cleveland for four more seasons, including the 2016 title run, and left in 2018 for the Lakers.

The list of James’ accolades to this point is beyond comparison.

He’s a 22-time All-Star, a 21-time All-NBA selection, a four-time Kia Most Valuable Player, a four-time NBA Finals MVP, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a three-time All-Star Game MVP, and was part of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. He’s coming off a season where he averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game, and for his career, he’s averaged 26.8 ppg, 7.5 rpg and 7.4 apg in more than 1,600 games.

He has also led a team to the Finals in 10 seasons, including eight straight appearances from 2011-18.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

At the age of 41, LeBron James is set to play a 24th season, and he’ll be doing it with the Philadelphia 76ers.

James will seemingly slot into a starting lineup that already includes Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid. And his job is simple: get the Sixers past the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Over the last nine seasons (since 2017-18), 19 of the league’s 30 franchises have reached the conference finals at least once. The Sixers are not one of those 19 franchises, even though they’ve had the league’s fifth-best regular-season record over that stretch.

James has reached the conference finals in 12 of his 23 seasons, winning four championships along the way.

Here are some more numbers to know about the NBA’s all-time leading scorer …

All stats are for the regular seasons, unless otherwise noted.

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1. All-time numbers

1. In addition to being the league’s all-time leading scorer, James is the only player with at least 10,000 career rebounds and 6,000 career assists.

2. James has played in at least 45 games and averaged at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in all 23 of his seasons. The only other player who’s put up those numbers in half as many seasons is Stephen Curry, who’s done it in 12 of his 17.

3. He’s one of three players — Luka Dončić and Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson are the others — who’ve averaged at least 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists per game in 500 career games or more.

4. He’s the all-time playoff leader in scoring and steals, while also ranking in the top 10 in playoff rebounds (fourth), assists (second) and blocks (ninth).

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2. Paint dominance, play-type diversity

5. James has scored 20,370 points in the paint, 5,024 more than any other player in the 30 years for which points in the paint have been tracked. His 65.2% shooting in the paint ranks fifth among 351 players with at least 2,500 paint attempts in those 30 years.

6. He’s the only player with at least 2,000 dunks and at least 2,000 3-pointers in the 30 years of play-by-play data. Kevin Durant is the only other player with at least 1,500 of each.

7. The 1.6 dunks per game he averaged last season were his most in the last nine seasons. Dunks accounted for 11.2% of his field goals, the second highest rate of his career and up from 5.6% (the lowest rate of his career) in 2024-25.

8. He’s one of four players — DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valančiūnas and Nikola Vučević are the others — with at least 100 post-ups in all 13 seasons of tracking data. Last season, the Lakers scored just 0.89 points per chance when a James post-up led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line. That rate ranks 20th among 21 players with at least 100 direct post-ups.

9. He’s one of three players — DeRozan and James Harden are the others — with at least 300 isolations in all 13 seasons of tracking data. Last season, the Lakers scored 0.98 points per possession when a James isolation led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line. That rate ranks 37th among 53 players with at least 200 direct isolations.

10. Last season marked the eighth time in James’ career that he led the league (among players who played at least 41 games) in fast break points per game (5.7). He ranked in the top five in all eight of his seasons with the Lakers, and his 6.2 fast break points per 36 minutes last season were the second-highest rate of his career.

11. He has 4,090 career assists on 3-pointers, the most for any player in the 30 seasons for which we have play-by-play data.

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3. Clutch numbers

12. James has 70 career field goals (regular season, SoFi Play-In Tournament and playoffs combined) to take the lead in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime. That’s the most for any player in the 30 seasons of play-by-play data and one more than Kobe Bryant (69).

13. Over the last three seasons (including playoffs), he’s shot 95-for-183 (52%) on clutch shots, the third best mark among 69 players with at least 100 attempts. That breaks down to 73-for-110 (66%) on clutch 2-pointers and just 22-for-73 (30%) on clutch 3-pointers.

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4. Taking a smaller role in Year 23

14. James’ 20.9 ppg in 2025-26 was the lowest scoring season of his career. His usage rate (26.2%) was also the lowest of his career.

15. He averaged 3.8 minutes of possession per game, 11.6% of his total minutes on the floor. Those were, by far, his lowest rates in the 13 seasons for which we have tracking data. He was assisted on 53.9% of his field goals, making it the first time in his career that he had been assisted on at least half.

16. His 6.9 drives per game and 7.5 drives per 36 minutes were both his lowest rates (by healthy margins) in the 13 seasons of tracking data.

17. His 3-point rate (26.4% of his shots) was his lowest in his eight seasons with the Lakers.

18. His 31.7% from 3-point range was the fourth-worst mark in his career and his worst mark in the last 10 seasons. After shooting 44.5% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers over the previous two seasons, he shot just 40-for-122 (32.8%) on catch-and-shoot 3s in ’25-26.

19. Overall, he shot 64.1% in the paint and had an effective field goal percentage of 44.8% on shots from outside the paint. That was the sixth biggest differential among 149 players with at least 200 field goal attempts both in and outside the paint.

20. Opponents shot 48.8% on shots he defended, when the expected field goal percentage on those shots was 47.2%. That was the first time in 13 seasons of tracking data where opponents shot better than expected when he was defending.

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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.