Jaylen Brown and LeBron James were back in the gym with Tyrese Maxey, a quiet workout that says plenty about where the Philadelphia 76ers want to go next. With the 2026-27 season ahead, the sight of Maxey working alongside two of the NBA’s biggest names is the kind of early signal teams use when they are trying to turn talent into something that lasts.
The timing matters because this is not a casual offseason run. Brown just finished a 2025-26 season in which he averaged 28.7 points for the Boston Celtics, and he arrives with the kind of résumé that changes the tone of any room: finals MVP in Boston’s 2024 run, then another star turn now tied to the Philadelphia 76ers’ effort to build around Maxey. James brings even more weight, with four championships, four finals MVPs and the most points in NBA history. Put those names together, and the workout reads less like a photo opportunity than a message about ambition.
That ambition is real, but so is the history hanging over it. The Sixers have not won a title since 1983, and they have not been past Round 2 since 2001. Those numbers sit under every hopeful conversation about the roster, especially when Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe are also being folded into the picture around Maxey, Brown, James and the rest. The promise is obvious. The standard is not.
That is why this gym session matters now. The 76ers are not being judged on the idea of a talented roster; they are being judged on whether the pieces can fit before the 2026-27 season opens and whether that fit can finally carry them beyond the limits that have defined the franchise for more than two decades. The next checkpoint is the season itself, and for Philadelphia the question is no longer whether the names are big enough. It is whether they can become enough together.
