The 76ers' 29-point comeback came with a minimum-salary James beside a payroll that bought 45 wins last season
The Philadelphia 76ers trailed the Cleveland Cavaliers by 29 points in their home opener on Thursday night and won 114-106, the Associated Press reported. That moved them to 2-0 after an opening win over the champion Knicks.
Cleveland led 69-45 at halftime, and Philadelphia took the second half 69-37, according to Yahoo. The first half had gone badly enough that, per AP, the Sixers missed 11 of 15 3-pointers, committed 14 turnovers and heard boos from a packed building late in the second period.
The turnaround ran through the familiar names first. Tyrese Maxey scored 32 points and was the catalyst for a 15-0 fourth-quarter run, and Joel Embiid had 24, including seven straight in the fourth that made it 96-95, AP reported.
The new names filled in around them. Jaylen Brown, a newcomer coming off an All-NBA Second Team season with Boston, added 21. LeBron James, in his first home game for Philadelphia, had 17 points and 10 rebounds in what AP called the biggest comeback win of his career, plus five assists and three steals per Yahoo, while rookie VJ Edgecombe added 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Maxey pointed to what Brown changes in the rotation: "It brings just a different dynamic for our team, offensively and defensively. We can throw him in there at any given moment; he can guard bigs, he can guard guards like tonight," he said, according to Yahoo. A player who can take either assignment gives a coach more ways to arrange a lineup, though one game is not a sample.
The contract part of the story starts with James. He flirted in free agency with a third stint in Cleveland before signing a two-year deal with the Sixers for the veteran minimum, AP reported; further terms were not disclosed. A four-time champion on a minimum salary is about as cheap as a headline addition gets, but his value for the money cannot be read yet: he was not on Philadelphia's payroll last season.
That leaves last season as the reading. In 2025-26 the Sixers carried an effective payroll of $193.2M, the eighth-highest in the league, won 45 games, the 13th-most, and lost in the conference semifinals: a WAGE Score of 55, close to what a bill that size usually buys, in the Going Rate band.
Where the output came from is the more useful question. Last season Embiid ($55.2M) and Paul George ($51.7M) took 56% of the payroll and produced 17% of the roster's production. The material does not say why, and a season-long share depends on games and minutes as much as on how well a player played when he was on the floor, so I would not read it as a judgment on either; it does show the two largest contracts carried a far smaller share of the output than of the bill.
That shape is the open question for this season, not a line the roster has to clear: last season most of the production came from below the top of the sheet, and whether this rebuilt group spreads it the same way is unknown. So is what it costs: this season's payroll, Brown's contract and how he was acquired, and Embiid's and Maxey's current salaries have not been reported.
I'd argue Thursday is more interesting for its mechanism than its result. The fourth quarter ran through Embiid, the largest salary on last season's sheet, and through Maxey, with Brown delivering several baskets during the 15-0 run, according to Yahoo, and James filling his line on the minimum.
The concession is obvious and real: this is the same roster that trailed by 29 at home, and two games cannot show whether that spread of production holds over a season. The rest of the season answers that.