The 76ers added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to a roster already featuring Joel Embiid. But ESPN’s latest NBA ranking still puts Tyrese Maxey ahead of them all — and leaves the Sixers without a player in its top 10.
Maxey landed at No. 11 in ESPN’s NBA Rank, released Wednesday, while Brown came in at No. 14, James at No. 18, and Embiid at No. 41. VJ Edgecombe ranked No. 72, giving the Sixers five projected starters among the league’s top 72 players.
ESPN asked its seven panelists to project each player’s contributions to the 2026-27 regular season, weighing quality and quantity of play. That distinction is especially relevant to Embiid, who averaged 26.9 points last season but appeared in only 38 games.
Maxey’s climb followed the best season of his career. He averaged 28.3 points and 6.6 assists in 70 games, earned third-team All-NBA honors, and rose 17 spots from No. 28 in last year’s ranking.
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin wrote that Maxey’s presence played a major role in James’s decision to sign with the Sixers. Brown, meanwhile, arrives after averaging a career-high 28.7 points for Boston and making the All-NBA second team. ESPN projects Maxey ahead of both newcomers as the three prepare to play together for the first time.
Embiid rose six spots from last year’s ranking, but his No. 41 placement still reflects questions about how often he will play. ESPN noted that he has appeared in 96 of a possible 246 games since winning MVP in 2023. While his scoring remains among the league’s best when he is available, the panel was projecting what he could contribute across a full regular season.
James’s drop carries its own historical weight. He ranked eighth last year, and No. 18 marks the first time he has fallen outside the top 10 in NBA Rank’s 15-year history. He enters his first season with the Sixers at 41 years old after taking on a facilitator role alongside Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves with the Lakers.
Even ESPN’s analysts disagreed about where James belongs. In a separate discussion of the rankings, Jamal Collier called No. 18 “questionable,” while Tim MacMahon considered it “fair.” Anthony Slater pointed to James’s placement behind Maxey and Brown as a sign of the adjustment awaiting him.
Edgecombe made his first appearance on the list at No. 72 after averaging 16.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.2 assists as a rookie. He finished third in Rookie of the Year voting and ranked 11th in the NBA in minutes.
Paul George, whom the Sixers sent to Boston in the deal for Brown, landed at No. 67. That puts him 13 spots below last year’s ranking and 53 behind Brown on this year’s list.
The year-to-year changes come with a shift in ESPN’s process. Previous lists drew on player-vs.-player votes from more than 100 contributors; this year, ESPN combined top-100 ballots from seven panelists. The instruction to project regular-season contributions stayed the same.
Brown has acknowledged the adjustment ahead. At his introduction in August, he said the new teammates would need to sacrifice, trust, and communicate. “Winning is the agenda,” he said. Maxey may be ESPN’s highest-ranked Sixer, but the list cannot answer how often the five starters will play together or what each will give up when they do.
ESPN will reveal its top 10 on Thursday, with every member of the Sixers’ projected starting lineup accounted for. The Sixers open the season Oct. 20 against the reigning champion New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden (7 p.m., NBC10) — their first regular-season chance to see how those five fit together.
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