LeBron’s Philly Shocker! Plus, the 2011 NBA Redraftables With Zach Lowe.
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How did Bill and Zach react to the breaking news that LeBron signed with the Sixers?
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All right. It is Friday morning. This is the Bill Simmons podcast. I have no Sunday podcast. This was supposed to be the Sunday podcast. Zach Lowe was coming here. We're going to do a 2011 redraft and 20 minutes before we were about to start recording. We got the word that LeBron James is going to the Philadelphia 76ers. We're going to talk about that one second. Live rewatchable is coming Monday, four o'clock. Pacific time. We are doing obsession. So stay tuned for that. Okay. LeBron to Philly. So I'm first, I'm going to start eating some crow. I thought Cleveland was done. I thought this was where this was headed the whole time. I'm not sure what happened there. We can talk about that later. Uh, Philly shocked me.
This got a, this got a genuine. Well, it wasn't a Luca trade. Whoa, but this was a whoa. I didn't think this was in play. I didn't think he'd want to live there. I guess he's going to live in New York. Um, was that, where was this on a one out of 10? Whoa, scale for you.
7.5 the moment Bob Myers went on game over I had someone in the league I said some iPod just say to me someone smart not not necessarily read not not not even reading tea leaves which is saying why would he go on that show and potentially debase himself like that if he didn't know something and since then that's but that doesn't necessarily mean anything because all these teams were just telling you the last two weeks we don't know we're in the dark we're completely in the dark and I, I I'm 7.5. It's not, it's not a 10. It's not a nine, but it's pretty high. I just, I'm like you. I just always thought momentum would push him towards a familiar destination, whether it was Cleveland, Miami, or his friends in golden state.
And this is a, this is fun, man. I, I, I actually really liked this for a whole multitude of reasons. I think this is a really fun. I think this might be other than Minnesota, which was a pipe dream and Denver, which was like a triple pipe dream. This is a really fun outcome.
So you're going to do the deep dive on Sunday. We are doing the irrational holy shit reactions to this. Big picture. This is maybe, maybe not Joel Embiid. We have no idea how many games he's going to play. You have a franchise guy in Maxi who's also a clutch guy. You have Vijay Edgecombe, year two. You have Jalen Brown. just being thrown into all of this. And then LeBron, I guess, as the power forward. It's a basketball team that makes sense. From a usage rate standpoint, does not make sense. But this is a team that if everybody's healthy and playing together, this would be kind of a nightmare to guard. And especially if they're playing with pace, like they did with Edgecombe and Maxie in a couple of those playoff games.
And then you throw LeBron into that. I'm just surprised that this almost makes me wonder if he's going to play until he's 45 now. which he's hinted at a couple of times. Like we thought like, oh, this would be the last year or the last two years. He said some things over the summer that like, why should I have to retire if I don't have to, right? Tom Brady played till he's 45. And I wonder like, because the Cleveland thing, which we can talk about later, they just couldn't figure out how to make that work. I wonder maybe that's where this ends anyway. And maybe he thinks two years, title chase, and then I'll end up in Cleveland for at the end.
We're already projecting him out of Philadelphia and over to Cleveland.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How did Bill and Zach react to the breaking news that LeBron signed with the Sixers?
0:06–7:06
2
What roster and lineup questions arise about LeBron, Embiid, Maxey, Jalen Brown and VJ Edgecombe?
7:06–26:22
3
How realistic is Philadelphia’s title outlook given Embiid’s health and minutes management?
26:22–50:03
4
How did Kawhi Leonard and draft-day trades reshape the 2011 redraft conversation?
50:03–51:51
5
Why was Kyrie Irving considered a major draft miss and who else rose in the redraft?
51:51–56:29
6
How do Klay Thompson vs. Jimmy Butler compare when redrafting the 2011 class?
56:29–1:05:53
7
Which later picks and role players (Isaiah Thomas, Vucevic, Jonas, Bismack) became surprising values?
1:05:53–1:42:09
Speakers
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