The REAL Reason Behind LeBron James' Decision...

The King has spoken, LeBron James is back with the Mind the Game podcast returning and him diving deep into what specifically led him to make the decision to join the 76ers and come to Philadelphia. I do want to dive into some notable quotes as well as why Tyrese Maxey was the driving force to this decision and why this is something I think has been under-discussed all throughout. Now we all know who Tyrese Maxey is at this stage of his career, both as a basketball player and as a personality. The guy that checks every single box for the type of player that you would want to represent your organization from the way that he expresses himself, just the vibe that he gives off as a personality and that is clearly something that has not been lost on LeBron James. Now these are two that have had a relationship for several years, had the same agency, trained under the same trainer, that they've kind of had cross paths in Los Angeles for several years to this point and ultimately Maxey earned a level of trust in LeBron James that led this pathway to coming to Philadelphia. I do encourage you guys to check out the entire podcast with LeBron. Very cool to kind of see him talk pretty candidly about the process that he went about, why Philadelphia was so appealing and he gave some pretty notable deep dive quotes on each of the key members of the Sixers. Not just Maxey, but Joel Embiid, Jalen Brown, Nick Nurse, Vijay Edgecumbe. I do want to dive deeper into these in a variety of videos, but ultimately I want to start with what I think made it very clear that Tyrese Maxey is the reason that LeBron James is Philadelphia. Shout out to John Clark who sends out a couple quotes here that says, LeBron James on why he chose Philly. My relationship with Tyrese Maxey goes beyond the court. I love the way, and then about Jalen Brown, I love the way that he approaches the game, both sides of the floor, his approach to the game, his insight of the game. He is misunderstood. And he also mentioned Joel Embiid saying, one of the most important things is the big fella and the only thing that he has not done, and that's win a championship. I want to try and help him get the first one. I hope that he can, that I can be that final little piece to help him get over the hump. It's time to dig deeper into the process. And for starters, I love the pandering here. I love dropping a little process line and I think it's pretty incredible that he's referring to himself as a little piece joining this Sixers team when you're LeBron James, man. But ultimately, Maxey's the story for me from the standpoint of Steve Nash brought it up asking pretty like, what was it? And he talked a lot about how Tyrese Maxey has such a relationship with him. He talked about how it originally started out, he more or less was hanging out with Bryce and Bronny coming over to the James household and continued to earn that respect. And I did want to pull up this quote coming from Maxey when he was asked, are they friends? And this cool coach quote, shout out to Clutch Points, that says, Tyrese Maxey on LeBron James. A kid asked me the other day, he looked at me and said, are you and LeBron friends? I thought about it. I leaned back and said, you know, I guess we are friends. He's the old, old, old guy, but he's like one of my old friends. And that relationship, that sort of, you know, youthful spirit is something that I think was very like appealing to LeBron James. I mean, how can you not love a guy who answers questions like who will take the last shot on the Sixers with questions with something like this saying, I think it depends on what the situation is. I think the biggest thing is we can't have anybody. Nobody on the team can have an ego. We have two guys that have won regular season MVPs, two guys that have won finals MVPs, multiple gold medal winners on the team, multiple 25 plus points per game, all stars, all NBA. We're all pretty accomplished. So the ego has to drop and you have to do it collectively. He's just exactly what you'd hope for from a mentality standpoint. And I think sometimes when I say it like that, it discounts who he is as a basketball player. This is a dude who in the ESPN rankings, which I will be touching on in a video tomorrow, was 11th in the NBA in the most recent rankings there. Now the highest ranking of any member of the Sixers. Now we can get into the Jalen Brown, the Joel Embiid conversation, LeBron James, who I think is still being discounted in what I think is a largely disrespectful ranking for this star-studded team. But the reality is each of these guys are going to buy in, play a role, and they all need each other to reach the mountaintop that they desire. Now when speaking about Tyrese Maxxie, it is no coincidence about his relationship with LeBron. I mean, we see the videos, the pictures of him working out. It's pretty cool that Jalen Brown has gotten in the mix as well. And I do see something very compatible about their playstyle. That just last year, Jalen Brown, Tyrese Maxxie, and LeBron James were all top 10 in transition possessions per game last year. Now they're all on the same team. Sixers are going to be a running gun more than anyone. Will be fun to watch. And I do think this is a fascinating little clash of how that coincides with the ability of Joel Embiid. It is not the easiest task that Nick Nurse does have on his shoulders. And I will say from a national pressure perspective, I wouldn't love to be Nick Nurse from the standpoint of, I can already see the headlines that are coming from national talk shows about he's not doing a good enough job getting this team to gel together. There's going to be growing pains. That is just the reality of the situation when you have such high usage stars that have each accomplished so much at the NBA level, trying to find a way to get them all to fit together. It's going to be a work in progress, at least in the early stages of the year, but this team is built to win, man. So to LeBron James, I do think it is pretty incredible that he is coming to Philly. And I do not think we've touched on sort of the Embiid conversation enough because we saw plenty of the headlines through the speculation of, is LeBron eyeing an Anthony Davis reunion? The fact that he spoke that glowingly about Joel Embiid, I do think is telling. And I also will note, there was something that I think was very noteworthy in the quote about Joel. And that second part, I did want to pull up from Austin Krell here, who tweets out. And one of the most important, to be honest, is the big fellow. He's done everything in our league. The only thing he has not done is win a championship. I want to try and help him get that first one. He's been the MVP of our league. He has a gold medal, all-stars, signature shoes, bunch of money. He has everything. He has a city on his back. It's been the process for 10 years, 12 years, however long he's been there. But I think it's time now that we dig even deeper into the process. And I hope that can be that final little piece that can help him get over the hump and have him maybe just see it a little bit differently than he's seen it in his career as far as the day-to-day process, the day-to-day, what it takes to get there. And that final line right there, I think is especially notable when it comes to Joel Embiid. Because it does not take an advanced basketball brain to sort through some of the comments that have been made that have been a little bit critical of Joel Embiid. Now, I've always been a little bit more sympathetic from the standpoint of, I do think he's in a different category because of the fragile nature of his body. This is not a guy like Tyrese Maxey who can run a million miles a day and be completely fine the next day. Embiid feels it, man. And when thinking about what is the best pathway to get him through the entirety of a regular season and a postseason, it maybe is not running him into the ground where you're running wind sprints and working out before and after games, when the reality is, your body is going to fall apart. So I've always had a little bit of grace for that, I think, more than the general public. But I think that's a noteworthy quote from LeBron. And the reason that I think this directly ties to Tyrese Maxey is he's quietly established a different culture than has been the case around Joel Embiid. It is very fair to critique the culture. And some of this, once again, I will sort of stick up for Joel Embiid. These Sixers did not do a good job collectively as an organization when they drafted and when the process kicked off of creating an infrastructure which was built for these young pieces to grow. In a major, kind of wider scale of the conversation, Joel Embiid basically had to figure things out on his own. And especially when you run down the list of guys that he was paired with. Whether it be Ben Simmons, who might as well be out of the NBA, I know he's on a non-guaranteed contract with the Sacramento Kings who won 22 games last year, but that might as well be out of the NBA. We can talk about James Harden, who's a guy who's got his jersey retired in a strip club, man. We can talk about Jimmy Butler, who was here for a cup of coffee. Markel Fultz, a number one pick that did not work out. Al Horford, who he hated next to him. There never was this stabilizing force to establish an organizational identity, and the Sixers fell short in that regard. Tyrese Maxey's guy, who got it, who is so vibrant, so expressive, such a lead-by-example guy in that he's going to be in the gym, he's going to be working on his craft, and the work does speak for itself. Think about the version of this guy that slipped to the 21st in the draft that allowed the Sixers to even have a chance at drafting him. Think about what this guy looked at as a rookie, the limitations that we did saw. Shot below 30% from beyond the 3-point arc. Flash forward just a couple years, he's top 5 in the league in 3-point percentage. That his handle's gotten much tighter. He's developed as a playmaker. He's turned himself into a legitimate 3-level scorer, and is still one of the quickest downhill guys in the entire sport. The work speaks for itself, and that sort of just complete embracing of it is what attracted LeBron James. Tyrese Maxey set the culture, LeBron James wants to be a part of it, and the entire city, the entire organization is going to benefit because of this. So very cool to hear the thoughts of LeBron James, I'm sure we're only going to hear more of it. Media Day on Monday, in which I think we'll get our first look at sort of the real intel, the questions that everybody wants to answer, where LeBron is not exactly controlling the platforms in which it's coming out, but a ton to be excited about. So shout out to LeBron James for coming to Philadelphia in the first place, shout out to you guys for tuning in to this video here, and shout out to Tyrese Maxey for really being the guy that made it all possible. We will see how things go down from here, but a ton to be excited about, and the 6-year season is now right around the corner. So appreciate you guys tuning in to this video right here as always. If you have not already, make sure you smash that subscribe button, drop a like on this video, give it your thoughts below, and I'll be back talking to you next time.