Biggest Stories of the Week

NBA — The King Is Back
LeBron James has made his decision to join the Philadelphia 76ers, taking his talents back to the East. Philly now rosters two former Finals MVPs in the same offseason—Jaylen Brown and LeBron—and if Philly wins it all, Bron would become the first player ever to capture a title with four different franchises.

CBB — The Reclass Rush
The hottest trend in college basketball is skipping your senior year of high school entirely. Elite prospect reclassifications keep piling up—No. 26 recruit Davion Thompson jumped early to Arkansas, Obinna Ekezie Jr., the No. 1 center in the 2026 class, classed up to Louisville, and Anderson Diaz did the same at Alabama. Why play for free as a high school senior when college programs will pay you thousands to millions to develop early?

In today’s issue:

👀 The Read — A few teams are on the come up

🔥 Clutch or Cap — Bob Myers does it again

On the Come Up

Nets
Jordi Fernández is entering Year 3 of the Brooklyn rebuild with the most talent he's had yet—and, once again, one of the youngest rosters in the NBA. Michael Porter Jr. is coming off a career year (24.2 PPG), the Nets landed three-time All-Star Julius Randle from Minnesota, and the young guards balled out at Summer League—Egor Demin showed year 2 leap flashes and rookie Mikel Brown Jr. looked like the perfect pick. But there are two big questions surrounding this squad.

MPJ is on trade watch entering the final year of his deal ($40M), and after sending Nic Claxton to Chicago, the frontcourt is a question mark. Outside of Randle, Day'Ron Sharpe (8.7 PPG) will be starting at center, former Sixth Man of the Year candidate Mo Wagner adds veteran depth, and behind them it's rookie Danny Wolf—so the depth is there but unproven. Whether Brooklyn extends or trades MPJ depends heavily on how this new group gels once the season starts. For now, it's a “let's see what we got” situation—and if the young core clicks, the Nets could be a lot more intriguing than people expect.

Suns
Year 2 of the Jordan Ott era begins after a wildly overachieving first run—Phoenix went 45-37 and snuck into the playoffs as a projected lottery team before getting swept 4-0 by top-seeded OKC. The Kevin Durant trade restructured this roster around Devin Booker, Jalen Green, and Dillon Brooks, and the offseason swapped Royce O'Neale and Grayson Allen for Miles Bridges (17 PPG)—a solid scorer, though the move cost them shooting, as Bridges is a career 33.8% from three, though signing league leader in 3-point percentage Luke Kennard should help offset that.

How far this team goes hinges a lot on Jalen Green. He’s a former No. 2 pick with the talent to be a real second star, but he has to be far more efficient after another rough playoff showing (38% FG)—though he only played 32 games last year coming off injury. The other swing factor is the frontcourt—undersized and overwhelmed by OKC's size in the sweep, it needs Khaman Maluach's Summer League leap (19.5 PPG, 12.8 RPG, 40% from three) to translate and re-signed starter Mark Williams to stay healthy. With Booker leading a solid supporting cast, the Suns should fight for a play-in/playoff spot again—but in a top-heavy West, how far they climb comes down to Green taking that leap and the frontcourt finally proving it can hang.

Pacers
Indiana had a rough season, finishing last in the East after losing Tyrese Haliburton during the 2025 NBA Finals to a torn Achilles. But he's back, and this team is due for a huge turnaround year. After losing Myles Turner they traded for Ivica Zubac (14.4 PPG, 11.0 RPG), who's a tremendous big man and plays a more traditional role Turner did not. Just recently they also went into the luxury tax for the first time since 2005 to add Kelly Oubre Jr., who will provide amazing 3-and-D depth, especially after trading Bennedict Mathurin.

Pascal Siakam is coming off his 4th All-Star selection season and looks to sustain his level of play, Andrew Nembhard is coming off a career high in PPG, Obi Toppin will be fully healthy to start the season, Aaron Nesmith's shooting will help the spacing, and of course everyone loves TJ McConnell. Indy should be a lock to make the playoffs and will compete for another Finals run.

Alabama
Nate Oats reloads again, but this year's roster comes with a very different look. Alabama's Sweet 16 run ended against Michigan, and they lost leading scorer Labaron Philon to the NBA (No. 22 overall) plus most of the rotation—so the theme this offseason was "get bigger," with every transfer standing 6'7" or taller. They brought in veteran size like Kentucky's Brandon Garrison and Boise State's Drew Fielder (14.7 PPG), and freshman Jaxon Richardson headlines a young, athletic wing class.

The area of concern is the backcourt: outside of returning glue guy Amari Allen (11.4 PPG), Alabama is dangerously thin and inexperienced at guard, and it may stay that way depending on whether Aden Holloway's off-court legal situation gets resolved in time. In a deep SEC where Florida, Texas, and Tennessee look like the clear top tier, Oats has his work cut out getting this young group up to speed—but ranked 15th in the way-too-early Top 25, the Tide should still be dancing come March.

Purdue
Matt Painter enters Year 22 fresh off another Elite Eight (a loss to Arizona) and one of the tougher reloads of his career. Gone is the legendary senior trio—Braden Smith (the NCAA's all-time assists leader), Fletcher Loyer, and Trey Kaufman-Renn—that led two Big Ten titles and a 2024 title-game run. But this is Painter, so instead of building the roster in the portal, he kept his whole young core: CJ Cox, sophomore Omer Mayer, Gicarri Harris, and 7'4" Daniel Jacobsen all return, joined by Princeton transfer Caden Pierce (11.2 PPG).

The obvious question is who replaces your top three scorers—you lose Braden Smith's playmaking, while Jacobsen has to step up inside after Trey Kaufman-Renn held it down for four years. But Painter's development track record is second to none, and in a Big Ten that got gutted across the board this offseason, the Boilermakers clearly still have a chance to compete.

Iowa State
Iowa State was a trendy Final Four pick last year before it all unraveled at the worst possible time—Joshua Jefferson sprained his ankle in the first round, and without their All-American, the Cyclones got destroyed on the glass (43-22) and bounced by Tennessee in the Sweet 16. Not to mention the offseason made it sting worse. Same story as Purdue: they lost their top three scorers, with Jefferson and four-year point guard Tamin Lipsey both off to the NBA and leading scorer Milan Momcilovic transferring to Kentucky.

But T.J. Otzelberger reloaded with his usual grit—Killyan Toure, one of the best perimeter defenders in the country, is back (though his 31% from three has to climb), along with sharpshooter Jamarion Batemon (37% from three) and senior center Blake Buchanan inside. The portal highlight is Bradley's Jaquan Johnson, a two-way guard who put up 16.9 PPG with 2.5 SPG on 38% from three—an ideal fit for Iowa State's aggressive, physical defensive identity. With the Big 12 looking thin compared to last year, the Cyclones have a clear shot to get back to top-5. But sitting at No. 24 in ESPN's way-too-early, they will need real leaps from Toure and Batemon and for these transfers to translate.

Money Talks

The Biggest Pay Cut Ever
LeBron's two-year, $8M deal in Philly is the largest single-season pay cut in NBA history—a $48.75M drop from his $52.63M Lakers salary, taking the record from Russell Westbrook.

14 Dimes
Mavs rookie Sergio De Larrea became just the 4th player in Summer League history to record 14 assists in a game—adding 9 boards in a win over OKC.

Declining Dynasty
Golden State is the only team in the NBA that didn't add a single player via trade or free agency this offseason.

Priced Above the King
At least 18 college basketball players will make more than LeBron's $3.9M next season—led by Kentucky's Milan Momcilovic (~$6M) and Florida's Thomas Haugh (~$5M).

B1G Summer
Big Ten alums ran Summer League—Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg won the title and championship-game MVP (14.8 PPG), Ohio State's Bruce Thornton averaged 18.6 on 40.6% from three, and Washington's Hannes Steinbach quietly dropped a 27-point, 15-rebound game while averaging 15.8 PPG and 9.2 RPG for the Hornets.

Toure's a Thief
Killyan Toure's 54 steals last season were the fifth-most by a freshman in Iowa State program history.

The Debates Driving Basketball

Bob Myers has now built two of the most stacked rosters of the last decade, and the credit isn’t loud enough. As HBSE's President of Sports, he stepped in as interim president after Philly fired Daryl Morey, ran the search himself, and hired Cavs GM Mike Gansey—who helped draft Darius Garland and Evan Mobley in Cleveland, and who finished second to LeBron in Ohio Mr. Basketball voting back in 2001. Rich Paul called Gansey an X-factor during free agency, and it doesn't hurt that Klutch reps both LeBron and Maxey.

We've seen this movie: Myers won four rings and two Executive of the Year awards in Golden State by wrapping a drafted core around perfect complementary vets—Iguodala, Livingston, David West, McGee, Pachulia—then landing Durant to make it inevitable. Now it's Jaylen Brown, LeBron, Caldwell-Pope, Anfernee Simons, and Dean Wade around Embiid, Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe, and on paper it's the best roster in basketball.

But Myers did his job—the rest is on Nick Nurse. Nurse has a ring, though 2019 carries a small asterisk people forget: Kawhi's four-bounce Game 7 dagger came against Philly, and Toronto beat a Warriors team that lost Durant to a ruptured Achilles and Klay to a torn ACL. This time it won't be simple either, because LeBron just shot 31.7% from three, his worst mark in a decade, Brown has never been a consistent spacer, and outside of Maxey (career 37.7% from three) this roster mostly wants to live in the paint and midrange—though if they can't stretch you, they can still hunt you, because guarding Maxey or Brown with your best defender leaves LeBron, VJ, or Embiid to attack whoever's left.

Nineteen of 30 franchises have reached the conference finals over the last nine seasons and Philly isn't one of them, despite the fifth-best regular-season record in that span. Myers has now built two of the most talented rosters in modern NBA history—if this group doesn't win a title within the next two years while LeBron's in Philly, that's not on Myers. And anything short of a title will be considered a shortfall.

🔥 Clutch or Cap 🧢?
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Reclassifying early isn't just a money grab—it's one of the smartest moves in college basketball right now, and the NCAA made it official. On June 23, the NCAA approved an age-based model giving Division I athletes five seasons in a five-year window, with the clock starting at full-time enrollment or the academic year after you turn 19, whichever comes first.

Read that second trigger again, because it changes everything: the clock runs on your birthday whether you're on a college campus or not. That means the prep year, the JUCO detour, and reclassifying down—all the old low-risk development paths—now quietly cost you a season you'll never play.

So the top guys are going. Marcus Spears Jr., the No. 1 player in 2027, classed up to Texas. No. 26 Davion Thompson jumped to Arkansas, No. 1 center Obinna Ekezie Jr. landed at Louisville, Joaquim Boumtje-Boumtje went to Duke, and Anderson Diaz reclassified into Alabama. The payoff is obvious: you get paid a year sooner and you develop against grown men a year sooner.

But there is real risk to consider—your clock is running early, Spears is too young for the 2027 draft and has to stay two years, and riding the bench can hurt your stock more than dominating high school would help it—but for a genuine top recruit, that math still favors going. This is the new structure of the sport. Get familiar with it, because the best players are now showing up on campus early.

🔥 Clutch or Cap 🧢?
🗳 Vote on Instagram/TikTok: @hoopvalor
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The Biggest Headlines in Basketball

🔔 Philly Adds More Depth. LeBron officially signed his two-year $8M deal, and one day after landing LeBron, the Sixers added his old bubble-title teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on a one-year, $3.9M deal following his Memphis buyout.

💜 Lakers Round Out Depth. LA signed two-time All-Defensive wing Matisse Thybulle to a one-year, $3.3M deal and inked Summer League standout Arthur Kaluma to a two-way.

✍️ Free Agency Leftovers. Jordan Walsh agreed to a three-year, $15M extension with the Celtics, Mario Hezonja signed a one-year, $2.8M deal with Cleveland, and Denver matched OKC's two-year, $12M offer sheet to keep Spencer Jones—a move that nearly doubles their luxury tax bill from $36M to $68M and pushes them into the second apron.

📜 LeBron James Day. Pennsylvania's governor proclaimed July 24th "LeBron James Day" hours after the signing.

🏛️ Chef's Exhibit. The Naismith Hall of Fame is debuting a dedicated Stephen Curry exhibit—the first for an active player in the Hall's 75-year history.

Moments, Memes, and Culture

Philly’s starting five looks the best on paper, but the memes are already circling due to some reputations:

That’s Volume 27.
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Catch you courtside. 🏀
—Hoopvalor