The Process: 12-year journey for Sixers fans that led LeBron James to Philadelphia

LeBron James is officially a member of the Philadelphia 76ers. Wild, right? I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to actually “process” this information and I think the only way to properly appreciate what that means is to walk back through the entire road that got this franchise here.

The path from tanking to landing the plane on one of the greatest players who ever lived really started 12 years ago with questionable draft picks, blown leads, fired coaches, and far too many first and second-round exits that felt like they were never going to lead anywhere at all.

LeBron James & The Process (2014-2026)

2014: The Sixers draft Joel Embiid. A broken foot, a kid nobody was sure would ever play, and the single most important decision this franchise has made in forty years.

2015-16: The Sixers win 10 games. Ten. In an entire NBA season. Historic futility, openly embraced, and the low point that every fan who lived through it still brings up when someone tries to romanticize the tanking years.

2016: Ben Simmons goes first overall. Boston takes Jaylen Brown third in that same draft, which is a detail that becomes deeply relevant about a decade later.

2017: The Sixers trade up from three to one for Markelle Fultz. Jayson Tatum goes third. It was the right move at the time.

2018: 52 wins and a second-round exit to Jaylen Brown’s Celtics. The first real taste of what this era was going to be.

2018: Trade for Jimmy Butler. The swing for the fences.

2019: 51 wins, and Kawhi Leonard’s shot bounces four times before falling. Game 7. That rim. Nobody in this city has recovered.

2019: Sign-and-trade Jimmy Butler to Miami for Josh Richardson. A decision that gets worse every single year.

2020: Swept by Jaylen Brown and the Celtics. Brett Brown gets fired, Doc Rivers gets hired.

2020: Draft Tyrese Maxey. Twenty-first overall. The best pick this organization has made since Embiid.

2021: First place in the East. Blew 18- and 26-point leads to the Atlanta Hawks in the second round. Game 7 at home. Ben Simmons passes up a wide-open dunk with three minutes left and shoots 34 percent from the free throw line for the series. The franchise never fully recovered from that possession.

2021-22: Simmons sits out the entire season. For reasons that changed depending on the week.

2022: Trade Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two firsts for James Harden. Then win 51 games and lose in the second round again, this time to Jimmy Butler’s Heat, because of course it was Butler.

2023: 54 wins, a 3-2 series lead over Boston, and Jayson Tatum drops a Game 7 record 51 points to end it. The same Tatum they passed on in 2017.

2023 Summer: Embiid wins MVP over Jokic, Doc gets fired, Harden requests a trade. Then Harden goes to the Clippers in October.

2024: 47 wins and a first-round exit to the Knicks. Then they sign Paul George that summer.

2025: Bad again. But they draft VJ Edgecombe third overall out of it.

2026: Exceed expectations at 46 wins, eliminate Boston in the first round. Then lose to the eventual champion Knicks in the second.

2026 Summer: Trade Paul George and a pile of picks to Boston for Jaylen Brown. The same Jaylen Brown who has personally eliminated this franchise more times than any player alive.

2026: Sign LeBron James.

ESPN 30 for 30 on the Sixers and The Process will be CINEMA

Read that list again and understand what it represents, because it isn’t a highlight reel.

It’s twelve years of second-round exits, blown leads, franchise players who quit on the city, coaches who got fired for losing series they should have won, and draft picks that turned into the wrong player more often than the right one. Every single entry on that timeline was a fanbase getting its hopes raised and then watching them collapse in the most creative way the basketball gods could devise.

Kawhi’s shot bounced four times. Simmons passed up the dunk. Tatum dropped 51 in a Game 7. The Hawks came back from 26. The Heat, the Celtics, the Knicks, the Raptors, the Hawks, all of them took turns ending seasons that started with real belief attached to them. Now, LeBron James is signing here on a two-year, $8 million deal because he believes this roster can win a championship.

The Process Was Never About Tanking

Rich Paul went on his podcast a week ago and called The Process a negative thing, saying it was the worst thing an organization could do. He was right about the tanking part, and I’ve said the same thing repeatedly because those years were genuinely miserable to watch and I’m not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of nostalgia.

However, when you lay it out all on paper, The Process stopped being about tanking the moment Joel Embiid arrived. Embiid himself turned into The Process and from that point forward, it became a promise that all of that suffering would eventually mean something, and every year that promise looked more like a lie as the second-round exits piled up and the window kept closing without anything to show for it.

Thursday is the day it stopped being a lie.

Nobody Saw This Coming

The best part of the entire timeline is the last line, which is that LeBron James signed with a team that wasn’t even considered among the frontrunners for most of The Process.

Cleveland made sense emotionally. Miami made sense historically. The Warriors were in it. Philadelphia was the team whose own local radio hosts were calling the recruitment embarrassing while national analysts insisted Embiid’s health made the whole thing a non-starter.

Maxey called. Embiid called. Jaylen Brown called. Saquon pitched him at a football camp, Mike Trout pitched him at All-Star Media Day, Governor Shapiro pitched him at a restaurant in New York, and Josh Harris caught him at Fanatics Fest. The whole city showed up and made the case, and the greatest player in the history of the sport listened.

Twelve years from 10 wins to LeBron James. Forty-three years since the last championship. The Process delivered. Finally.

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