Tyrese Maxey Speaks On Convincing LeBron James To Join 76ers And Jaylen Brown's Wild Skydiving Idea
Credits: LeBron James (Fadeaway World), Jaylen Brown (Imagn Images), Tyrese Maxey (Getty Images)
Tyrese Maxey, the 76ers’ point guard, is hosting an event this weekend for his charity foundation. While promoting the event, Maxey caught up with John Clark of NBCS and addressed how much he had to convince LeBron James to join him on the 76ers.
“He’s a good guy, he’s a good guy who is pretty good at basketball too,” said Maxey with a smirk on his face about his reaction to the free agency signing.
“Not many, it wasn’t a lot of convincing. As you said, we’re good friends. I mean, I guess we’re friends, but he’s a lot older than me, but I guess we’re friends.”
Several teams were making public pitches to James, and reports also indicated that Maxey was actively recruiting James during his free agency. But to some extent, this goes to show how irrelevant those pitches were since it apparently took little effort to convince the 41-year-old superstar to head to Philadelphia in free agency. It indicates James knew what the priority factors were to consider while making his decision.
The 41-year-old is already actively engaged with his teammates and has begun building team chemistry by internally discussing strategies. But Jaylen Brown went as far as to already plan how to celebrate a potential championship.
Apparently, LeBron James, at age 41, was asked by Jaylen Brown if he would like to go skydiving to celebrate if they win a championship. And just like James did, Tyrese Maxey also seems to have directly refused that ambitiously wild request.
“That’s not happening, I’ll be watching from the ground,” he reportedly said in reaction to the skydiving idea. “I don’t know what group chat he’s talking about,” joked Maxey.
“Nah, it’s good man, those guys are really good. I think where we are this season will be really great… Those guys do some of the great stuff that I do, so on the court we’ll see what that looks like,” Tyrese Maxey concluded.
Reports have indicated that it would be Maxey who would be expected to sacrifice the most in terms of his on-ball duties. LeBron James is expected to take over the primary playmaker role, and Jaylen Brown is anticipated to be the first option in scoring.
This leaves a lot of room for Maxey to figure out his new role on the team. And while NBA legends like Shaquille O’Neal may feel sorry for Maxey, I anticipate that the one or two years that he has with LeBron James will help him get the necessary mentorship to propel him from being an elite point guard to one of the top three in the league someday.
Maxey ended the 2025-26 season with 27.7 points, 6.5 assists, and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 46.1% from the field and 36.6% from behind the three-point line.
But this was when Joel Embiid was injured for most of the season, and Paul George was his second option. Now, if Tyrese Maxey becomes a third option behind Brown and Embiid, these numbers could take a drastic fall this season. But his experience of learning how to run the offense from a player like LeBron James will be beneficial for his own future as well.
It will certainly be fascinating to see if the 25-year-old point guard has the patience to sacrifice and do what it takes to win it all with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown in Philadelphia.