The Philadelphia 76ers will enter the 2026-27 season with four All-NBA players in the starting lineup: Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, and Tyrese Maxey. They also have a promising up-and-comer in V.J. Edgecombe who could be a defensive specialist, but needs opportunities to develop through experience on offense.
If the 76ers are going to make their crowded lineup work, then they should study the 2023-24 Boston Celtics to see how they won a title with a similar structure.
Boston's 2023-24 championship team was built on star power and sacrifice. Brown and Jayson Tatum were the go-to players on offense, but Kristaps Porzingis added 20.1 points in 29.6 minutes per game, Jrue Holiday was an All-Star and NBA champion joining a new team, and Derrick White needed touches as a scorer and playmaker.
The Celtics also needed to find meaningful roles for volume bench scorer Payton Pritchard and veteran center Al Horford.
Despite the apparent logjam and an inevitable lack of ideal touches for such a deep cast of All-Stars and award-winning players, Boston made it work. Defense became the team's top priority, roles were clearly defined for every player on offense, and isolation touches were distributed as evenly as possible.
The 76ers' cast is by no means identical to the Celtics', but they can learn quite a bit from their rivals about how they can make this team work.
76ers should study the 2024 Celtics to make crowded lineup work
Boston's identity during its championship season was that of a defensive juggernaut. Whether the players on the roster were elite defenders or simply quality contributors, they all bought in and prioritized defense above all else.
The result was the Celtics ranking No. 2 in the NBA in defensive rating and opponent field goal percentage, and No. 4 in opponent three-point field goal percentage.
For Philadelphia to make its own roster work, the stars must lead by example on the defensive end of the floor. The good news is that its core is flush with players who are committed defenders, which suggests they should be able to achieve such a feat.
Questions about health and shot distribution will persist, but elite defense is the ultimate cheat code for bailing out potentially flawed offenses.
From there, it's a matter of deciding who will play what role on the offensive end of the floor. It's unclear what shape that will take, but there's a fair case for James operating as the primary playmaker, Brown and Maxey taking on the heaviest scoring workloads, Edgecombe picking his spots, and Embiid pacing himself through the regular season to limit wear and tear.
No matter what the 76ers ultimately do on offense, however, they must follow the Celtics' lead by prioritizing defense. Defining offensive roles will be a far easier job from there.
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