PHILADELPHIA -- It might have been the basketball equivalent of a dress rehearsal, but the 76ers' intrasquad scrimmage Saturday certainly gave a promising glimpse of what could be in store when the curtain actually comes up for the 2026-27 NBA season.
Philadelphia hosted its annual Blue-White game in front of approximately 10,000 fans at Xfinity Mobile Arena, moving the exhibition from their G League affiliate's home in Delaware to accommodate the added interest in the new-look team.
While throngs of fans waited in lines more than 10-deep in the atrium an hour before the noon start, there was plenty of on-court action from LeBron James, Jaylen Brown & Co. to enjoy as soon as the scrimmage started.
"To be able to take what we've done on the practice floor, bring it to a game floor situation around our fans ... it was a great first step in the direction we're trying to go," James said.
Longtime Sixers public address announcer Matt Cord, who had retired before deciding to come back once Philadelphia had its historic summer, announced the starters for the Blue team.
First Tyrese Maxey, then VJ Edgecombe, then Brown, then James and then the man in the middle who has been with the franchise for 13 years.
"7-2 from Cameroon, No. 21, Joel 'The Processsss' Embiiddddd!" Cord bellowed.
"It doesn't matter who gets announced first, last, second, third," Embiid said.
But the cheers that followed every name did mean something to him.
"We love the fans," Embiid said. "We want them, and we need them to be part of this. I mentioned it at media day: It's already hard enough to win as a group that gets together for the first year. So we're going to need all we can, whether it's from everybody in this building, the fans, the outside people, we're going to need to get together. We're going to need all the support possible."
The Sixers didn't keep an official box score, but the stats mattered far less than some of the sequences that showed the early chemistry that is developing after a week of training camp, including James finding a trailing Embiid for an above-the-break 3.
"Guys are going to use their speed against people and try to score a quick basket, and if we don't have anything, I'm the trail guy," Embiid said matter-of-factly.
Both Maxey and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope delivered feeds to James for alley-oop dunks that the 41-year-old star finished with ease. Embiid got his 7-foot frame to lift high enough to both block springy second-year guard Edgecombe and have a dunk of his own.
"Pretty good, not bad," a noticeably slimmed-down Embiid said when asked how he felt physically compared to last season. Then he showed his sense of humor is as strong as ever.
"That's probably the last dunk of my career," Embiid said with a smirk.
While James has had only four official Sixers practices, plus the scrimmage, it was enough for him to conclude that Embiid is a different player than the guy he won a gold medal with at the Paris Olympics two summers ago.
"The difference between '24 and now, he's just so much more healthier," James said. "He hasn't missed a practice. He's been in damn near everything that we've done. Pretty much. They've had to sit him out at times, even when he wanted to keep going. ... So it's been good. Actually, great."
Philadelphia limited the scrimmage to three 10-minute quarters but started each period with the scoreboard set to 80-80 to simulate an end-of-game scenario.
Sixers coach Nick Nurse, who thanked the crowd for its support after the scrimmage, is giving the team the day off Sunday before it opens its four-game preseason slate by hosting the New York Knicks on Monday.
"It will be good to get out there with some of our guys to just get a rhythm," James said of the preseason schedule. "At the same time, also not overdo it, because we're putting a lot into our practices right now, fine-tuning what we want to do once the [regular-season] games come, but there'll be opportunities when we get out there in the preseason."