LeBron James’ Agent Dismisses Kevin Durant’s Comment About 76ers Team

A fully healthy Brooklyn Nets team featuring Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden was declared a championship favorite. This was done by nearly every analyst in basketball before they played a single regular-season game together. They never made it past the second round. Durant himself lived through it, which made his own willingness to crown a different star-studded roster before training camp even opens somewhat surprising. Rich Paul, agent of LeBron James, for his part, wasn’t buying it yet.

Durant appeared on Boardroom Talks with Speedy Morman and gave his take on the Philadelphia 76ers’ new roster.

“That’s going to be a juggernaut,” Durant said. “I think it’s not no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“He understands how to put a winning basketball team together," he went further, crediting LeBron James’ willingness to take a below-market contract as evidence of serious title intent. "He’s been in the league for 24 years — he should know how to understand how to do that. I feel like for him to take a minimum says a lot about his mindset and how he’s going to come into the team.”

Rich Paul, when asked to respond to Durant’s assessment, said. “Talk to me after 25 games,” Paul said. “Then talk to me after the trade deadline. Then talk to me at the start of the playoffs.”

Philadelphia’s projected starting five - James, Brown, Embiid, Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe - averaged a combined 120.8 points per game across their respective teams last season. A number that sounds like a strength until you consider that those players are accustomed to being featured, ball-dominant options.

James signed a two-year, $8 million contract this summer. He joined a Sixers roster that had already traded for Brown, who finished sixth in MVP voting last season while playing his most ball-dominant basketball as Boston’s primary option during Jayson Tatum’s Achilles recovery.

Durant predicted that James would function as a connector rather than a primary scorer: “Not everybody is going to average 25 points on this team. There will be nights when different players will become primary options, and responsibility could navigate throughout the season.”

The Sixers enter the season with genuine advantages Brooklyn’s 2021 superteam didn’t have. Continuity in Maxey and Embiid, a full training camp together rather than a pandemic-shortened ramp-up, and a coach in Nurse with championship experience.

They share with the Nets team a roster with more accustomed number-one options than available shots, minutes, and crunch-time possessions to satisfy all of them.

Paul’s response isn’t a denial that the talent is real. It’s an insistence on the standard NBA evaluation timeline that superstar-driven predictions skip past in the excitement of an offseason.