Who will take the last shot for the Sixers this season?

Ever since the Sixers traded for Jaylen Brown—and especially ever since they signed LeBron James a few weeks later—one question has repeatedly popped up: Who will take the last shot for them?

NBA teams typically have an established pecking order in crunch time. The Denver Nuggets are going to run their offense through Nikola Jokić, the Los Angeles Lakers are going to run theirs through Luka Dončić, so on and so forth.

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The Sixers might be the rare outlier in that regard. When they have all five of Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, LeBron James and Joel Embiid out on the floor, they’ll have five legitimate go-to options. Allocating one of them as the primary last-shot-taker would be a grievous misuse of their unique roster.

It would also be anathema to LeBron’s ethos.

As strange as this is to say about the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, LeBron’s greatest gift is his passing ability. He’ll likely be handling the ball and running the offense plenty during crunch time, but that doesn’t mean he’ll always be taking the last shot. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“You always make the right play,” James told reporters last December after his streak of 1,297 straight games with 10-plus points came to an end. (Instead of trying to extend his streak, he passed to Rui Hachimura for a game-winning three-pointer.) “That’s just been my M.O. That’s how I was taught the game. I’ve done that my whole career.”

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The Sixers’ collection of talent this season should afford them a rare opportunity, particularly once the playoffs roll around. They’ll be able to mismatch-hunt like few (if any?) other teams.

When Jalen Brunson went into seek-and-destroy mode against James Harden in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals this past spring, he single-handedly flipped that game back in favor of the Knicks. An apathetic defender like Harden will have nowhere to hide against the Sixers’ starting lineup. They can hunt him with whomever he’s guarding, even if that changes on a possession-by-possession basis.

You’re guarding Edgecombe? Great! Oh, you’re gonna try to guard Maxey now? Good luck. You’re shifting over to…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/last-shot-sixers-season-153758132.html

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Publish date : 2026-09-24 15:37:00

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