Philadelphia 76ers: LeBron James should regret his decision now

LeBron James should regret his decision in not choosing the Philadelphia 76ers over the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency last offseason.

Rewind to the summer of 2018, LeBron James just came off another losing effort in the NBA Finals against a stacked Golden State Warriors team. Outside of Kevin Love, James didn’t have any real talent to help him with making the Cleveland Cavaliers more competitive and there was no way to add legit talent. It was time for James to move on and the Philadelphia 76ers were on his short list of teams he was considering to join.

Only the Sixers and the Los Angeles Lakers had any real chance at getting James to sign with their respective franchise. However, James ultimately choose the glamour of Los Angeles over the better core that Philly had. With the less impressive of the two cores and futures, signing with the Lakers can be seen as a business/post playing career move.

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While the Lakers have a less than impressive roster, it was unlikely that they would fail to make the playoffs with James leading the team. This season has been full of drama and the Lakers front office failed to give James the supporting cast he needed to thrive either through free agency or trade (example: Anthony Davis). Young players were inconsistent and James missed a good chunk of the season to injury which basically ruined any chance of the Lakers making the playoffs.

There’s was already uncertainty with the coaching staff beyond this season, but the worse blow to the Lakers came with Magic Johnson‘s announcement that he’s stepping down from his management role with the franchise. Johnson was the main recruiter that brought James to Los Angeles to begin with.

Right now, the Lakers are a mess and one offseason of changes may not be enough to right their ship. It appears that James will be wasting away the last few years of his career with a franchise that’s currently in disarray. Now there’s a chance the Lakers could fix things, but surely they aren’t in a place that James thought they would be when he signed there last summer.

The Sixers are in the opposite position. They are playoff bound with the second best starting five the NBA with two young All-Stars in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Elton Brand is a rookie general manager (GM), but he has shown that he can add talent without sacrificing all of the team’s future assets.

If James had chosen Philly, Brand still probably would have traded for either Jimmy Butler or Tobias Harris and the team would still have had better depth. That’s because only making one of those trades would have kept more depth on the roster. Whether that be Robert Covington, Dario Saric, Landry Shamet or Wilson Chandler, any of those players would have helped this current incarnation of the bench.

James would have had depth for at least this season and had a young duo of stars that could have taken more of the burden off of him. He could have still made the NBA finals with the Sixers for the next few seasons with a better supporting cast that he would have had if he stayed with the Cavs or signing with the Lakers. He had the best chance of winning a championship if he had signed with the Sixers this past summer.

James still stands behind the Lakers despite of everything that happened this season, including the resignation of Johnson, but it wouldn’t be surprising if James isn’t completely happy. Assuming James still wants to compete for a championship in this latter part of his career, then he should be regretting his choice of choosing the Lakers over the Philadelphia 76ers.