The Final Decision has happened. LeBron James is going to the Philadelphia 76ers, and the rest of the NBA can now get back to business.
LeBron James has been in the league for a LONG time. The 2026-27 season will be his 24th in the NBA, giving him sole ownership of that record. In fact, he's been in the NBA so long that former Utah Jazzman Karl Malone was STILL playing when LeBron was a rookie in Cleveland back in 2003-04.
So it is fitting that now, in his final season (?), LeBron is taking a page out of Karl Malone's book - joining a superteam that will immediately be expected to win the championship.
Not only that, but the Sixers now have four players who have been 20-plus point per game scorers for most of their careers - Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, and the King himself.
When Malone left the Jazz to play his final season with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2003-04 season, the Lakers similarly had four players who had been averaging 20ppg - Shaq, Kobe, Payton, and Malone.
The Utah Jazz fanbase remembers how that pairing went - despite injuries to Malone and the tumult of the Shaq vs. Kobe feud, the Lakers went 56-26 and advanced to the NBA Finals against the underdog Detroit Pistons.
The dysfunction of that Lakers team came into full focus in the spotlight of the NBA Finals, as Detroit's castoffs then demonstrated that a team identity, even if less talented, can best a top-heavy superteam.
Why LeBron might be doomed to repeat Malone's fate
The path for a superteam to clean up and dominate is anything but easy. LeBron himself knows this, having been part of such teams in Miami, where the back-and-forth in the 2010-11 season over whether it was Dwyane Wade's team or LeBron's team allowed the Dallas Mavericks to pull a Detroit-like upset in the 2011 Finals over Miami.
History shows that at least one, if not multiple, players on a superteam have to take fewer shots and subjugate their ego to make things work. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce famously did so in 2007-08 with Boston, each averaging more than 17 but less than 20 points a night, to lead a 66-16 Celtics team to the title.
The injury problems that kept Malone's Lakers from winning the 2004 NBA title feel awfully similar to what the Sixers will face in 2026. That's not just the aging James, as Joel Embiid has cleared 60 games only twice in the last seven seasons and often isn't healthy by playoff time.
Jazz fans can take solace that LeBron is out of the West and not likely to disrupt the progress of our team into a playoff contender. And that the Lakers will be less of a threat this year than previously. All good things for the Utah Jazz, if LeBron's superteam fails to mesh and faces a Malone-like fate.
Add us as a preferred source on Google