LeBron James to join the Philadelphia 76ers, will sign 2-year, $8 million contract

LeBron James is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option, Klutch Sports Group CEO Rich Paul told ESPN's Shams Charania on Friday.

By choosing the 76ers, James commits to a fourth NBA team as he searches for a fifth NBA championship before retirement.

James will hope to break a 43-year championship drought for the 76ers, much the same way he erased a 52-year streak without a title for the city of Cleveland when he won a championship with the Cavaliers in 2016.

This could be the final free agency decision James will ever make as the 41-year-old enters a record-breaking 24th season.

Paul, as James' agent, had expressed that his client was prioritizing "basketball happiness" as the impetus to leave the Los Angeles Lakers, the 76ers interpreted that as a chance to win and sold their situation as such. Bob Myers, the president of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Sixers, appeared as a guest on Paul's podcast "Game Over" with co-host Max Kellerman to make a digital pitch.

"If he was here, I'd say, 'I honestly believe this is your best chance to win. You have to decide all the other things that are equally important,'" Myers said. "What I would just say is, if it's about winning, let's talk about this team. Because you can win here in Philadelphia."

The Sixers came at James from all angles. President of basketball operations Mike Gansey, who was a Cavaliers during James' second stint in Cleveland and competed against him as high school players in Northeast Ohio, stayed in constant communication with Paul behind the scenes, sources told ESPN.

Meanwhile, a trio of Sixers players -- Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and the newly acquired Jaylen Brown -- worked on James directly, sources told ESPN. That effort was led by Maxey, a fellow Klutch client who has referred to James as a "big brother" in the past.

James returns to an emergent Eastern Conference that includes two of his former teams that heavily pursued the four-time MVP: Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers and Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat.

The Sixers went 45-37 last season and lost to the eventual-champion New York Knicks 4-0 in the second round of the playoffs. It has been more than four decades since the 76ers last won the title (1983), and they have only two other conference finals appearances and one NBA Finals appearance in that span.

The furthest they have gotten with Embiid is Game 7 of the conference semifinals against the Toronto Raptors in 2019, when Kawhi Leonard's final shot bounced around the rim before ending their season.

Philadelphia was part of James' early basketball journey. As a junior in high school, he traveled with St. Vincent-St. Mary to play a road game against Strawberry Mansion at the University of Pennsylvania's storied Palestra gymnasium.

James had praised the Philadelphia fan base after he scored 12 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter to lift the Lakers to a 112-108 win in December.

"One thing you know about Philly fans, they don't care about anybody besides their home teams, and I respect and I love that," James said. "I've played here, for obviously 23 years, a lot more when I was in the Eastern Conference. But to be able to have an appreciation for the City of Brotherly Love and for me to go out and still play the game that I love and them respect it, whatever the case may be -- if they do -- it's pretty cool."

James' decision puts an end to a free agency frenzy that speculated about his options over the past several weeks, one fueled in part by Paul going on a media tour to discuss James' prospects, notably drawing out a list of potential suitors on a white board for an episode of his podcast.

But Paul wasn't the only one. Sports talk radio stations put callers on air swearing they had inside information about James' next step. Post on X went viral for featuring surreptitious photos of James crisscrossing the country during his downtime, with each location framed on the social media platform as a supposed clue as to where he would play next.

All the hoopla muted the fallout of James' departure from the Lakers after an eight-year run with the franchise -- which included the 2020 championship and was his longest consecutive tenure with any team during his career. After James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves fueled a 16-2 stretch from late February through the end of March last season -- with James taking a supporting role at the behest of coach JJ Redick -- it appeared that he could ride that out in Los Angeles until retirement.

Instead, James is taking his talents to the City of Brotherly Love.