LeBron James is changing teams for the first time since 2018. The 41-year-old has agreed to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, closing out an eight-year run with the Los Angeles Lakers and opening what will be his 24th season in the NBA, ONE reported, with the move quickly confirmed across the American sports press.
The deal is a two-year contract worth $8 million, with a player option for the second season, according to Rich Paul of Klutch Sports Group, James's longtime agent, in reporting first carried by ESPN's Shams Charania. It represents an enormous pay cut for a player who earned more than $52 million with the Lakers last season, underlining that this move was not about money.
James made the announcement himself, on X on Friday, ending weeks of speculation that had trailed him since he informed the Lakers in late June that he intended to explore his options once the season ended.
"I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and decide if I still love this game," James wrote. "I still truly love this game, and I have more to give." It was a pointed echo of the uncertainty he had voiced only weeks earlier, when he suggested his final game for the Lakers might have been the last of his career.
He framed the choice of Philadelphia in ambitious terms: "I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team, and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time."
The Sixers had been widely reported as favourites in recent weeks, helped by an aggressive recruiting push from inside the locker room. Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown — acquired from the Boston Celtics earlier in the summer — were all described as active in lobbying James to join, alongside the front office.
Philadelphia beat out competition from at least ten interested teams, including two clubs with deep personal ties to James: the Cleveland Cavaliers, the franchise of his native Northeast Ohio, and the Miami Heat, where he won two championships. In his announcement, James thanked Los Angeles, Miami — which he said "will always be in my heart" — and Northeast Ohio, which he called "always home."
The move slots James into a Sixers roster already built around Embiid's health and Maxey's scoring, now reinforced by Brown's two-way ability on the wing and rising guard VJ Edgecombe. Philadelphia's front office has made no secret of its intent to build a genuine title contender around that core before Embiid's prime years run out.
For the Lakers, the departure closes a chapter that began in 2018 and delivered the 2020 NBA championship inside the pandemic bubble, along with four playoff runs and the sight of James breaking the league's all-time scoring record in a Lakers uniform. Los Angeles now enters the post-LeBron era for the first time in eight years.
At 41, James remains the league's oldest active player by some distance, and his decision to keep going — on a modest, incentive-light deal rather than chase one final marquee payday — was framed by American outlets as evidence that competing for a fifth ring, not a farewell tour, is what persuaded him to sign on for one more run.
