The NBA didn’t have to build the Philadelphia 76ers a get-well season, and it built them one anyway, and I resent how obvious it is. I’ve spent years being the guy who screams about the league office rigging the calendar for somebody else’s favorite team. Now the favorite team is mine, and I still think it’s wrong. Philadelphia spent this offseason turning into a superteam. The schedule turned into a favor.
Start with the roster. Philadelphia sent Paul George, two future first-round picks, and two second-round picks to the Boston Celtics for Jaylen Brown, and that trade only happened because Boston’s first idea fell apart. The Celtics tried shipping Brown and two unprotected firsts to Milwaukee for Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks sent Giannis to Miami instead, Boston pivoted to Philly, and Brown landed in the same city that had just eliminated the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, the 23rd postseason meeting between these two franchises. That’s a rivalry that just got a lot more personal, and a lot more expensive.
Then LeBron James left the Lakers behind, called it his last decision after 23 seasons and four championships, and signed a two-year, $8 million deal with Philadelphia, player option included. He’s 41, not the 42 everybody keeps rounding him up to, and he’s walking into a starting five with Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Brown, and Joel Embiid. That’s the roster. The 76ers’ 2026-27 schedule built around LeBron James is where this gets interesting.
Philadelphia will play 34 nationally televised games this season, the NBA maximum, up from 14 a year ago. It’s the biggest single-season jump in franchise history, and it’s the first time the Sixers have ever hit the national TV cap at all, tying them with the Knicks, Spurs, and Lakers for the most exposure in the league. 34 national TV games is the league picking a favorite, and it picked the team that just traded two first-round picks and signed a Hall of Fame free agent to get interesting.
The schedule-makers protected the 76ers’ health too. Philadelphia’s back-to-backs dropped from a league-high 16 last season to 13 this year, and the team is tied for the fewest stretches of three games in four nights in the whole league. CBS Sports connected the dots without much subtlety, noting that “Joel Embiid has not played both portions of back-to-backs since 2024.” Translation: build the calendar soft enough and a 41-year-old and a center held together by load management both get to play in April.
None of this required a conspiracy. Adam Silver already told you the schedule would bend for LeBron, out loud, months before it happened. Speaking at a summit in July, before LeBron had signed anywhere and before the 2026-27 schedule existed, the commissioner said: “We have to finish up the schedule, and where LeBron plays will affect the schedule… the teams are calling us, the networks are calling us, and everybody wants to lock in the schedule.” That’s the commissioner of a 30-team league admitting the whole calendar was waiting on one free agent’s zip code. Nobody had to bribe anybody. Silver just said the quiet part into a live microphone, and then the finished schedule went and proved him right.
https://twitter.com/LegionHoops/status/2088624701824196727
Look at how they built the opening month. The 76ers open October 20 at the defending champion New York Knicks, in a building already jacking up ticket prices for the Sixers’ visit to Knicks ring night, then come home two days later for a national-TV home opener against Cleveland. They host George and the Celtics on November 10, his first game back in Philadelphia since the trade shipped him north, and host Kelly Oubre Jr. and the Pacers five days after that. Every marquee date in the first month of the schedule is winnable, nationally televised, and stacked with a plot the league can sell in a trailer. Philadelphia won’t see a Western Conference opponent at all until the Trail Blazers show up for game 18. That’s not scheduling. That’s a soft launch.
https://twitter.com/BBallGround/status/2088662441852817505
Somewhere there’s a franchise that would have traded a kidney for even one of those windows, grinding through the three-in-four stretches Philadelphia got waived out of instead. That team isn’t getting a press release explaining the imbalance. It’s just getting the schedule nobody wanted so the Sixers could get the one everybody’s watching. If the league’s algorithm really is blind to storylines, that’s a hell of a coincidence for a team that just added a 41-year-old icon and a second All-Star wing in the same summer.
I’ve spent six years riding SEPTA to games in this city complaining about how the league props up whoever it needs healthy for the cameras. I don’t get to stop complaining just because it’s my team cashing the check this time. The 76ers didn’t need to lie, cheat, or even ask. They just needed to sign the right 41-year-old, and the schedule did the rest. Enjoy the cupcakes, Philly. Somebody’s always the team stuck eating the back-to-backs so you don’t have to.
