Two days after LeBron James agreed to his two-year deal in Philadelphia, the first detailed reporting on how the 76ers got here — and what could undo it — arrived Monday from Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. The through-question in her reporting is not about James at all. It is about Joel Embiid.
Sources close to James told Shelburne he has long admired Embiid’s talent and basketball IQ while remaining wary of his health history, and that wariness is well founded: Embiid has played 57 regular-season games combined over the past two years. Shelburne notes his playoff absences this spring stemmed from emergency appendicitis surgery rather than the knee problems that have shadowed him, but the roster Philadelphia has assembled leaves little margin either way. With Andre Drummond gone to New York in free agency, the only true center behind Embiid is third-year big Adem Bona.
One league source put it plainly to Shelburne: a starting five of Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, James and Bona is not a championship team — the same four with Embiid is. From a team-building standpoint, that is the entire bet. Philadelphia spent its offseason acquiring finished products: Brown by trade, James and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on discount deals, Anfernee Simons for the bench. Every position has been addressed except the one behind the franchise center, which means the front office has built a contender whose season rests on a player who has averaged fewer than 29 regular-season appearances over the past two years.
Shelburne’s reporting also suggests James may again play a complementary role, as he did with the Lakers last season — an Eastern Conference executive told her none of the other projected starters has a history of doing the screening and dirty work a title run requires. Two team sources voiced concern about Edgecombe losing touches in the crowd, though a rival coach countered that injuries will open plenty of opportunity for the second-year guard.
For fantasy purposes, treat Embiid as the highest-variance early-round pick in drafts: elite per-game production, real games-played risk, and now less usage cushion around him. Maxey and Edgecombe both shade down slightly in redraft with James and Brown absorbing possessions, while Bona becomes one of the better handcuff stashes in deeper leagues — he is one Embiid absence from 25-plus minutes a night.
