CAMDEN, N.J. — Paul George halted the line of questioning with a smile.
It was pointed out at 76ers media day Monday that George, on a new three-year free-agent deal, is 34 years old, as is Reggie Jackson. Eric Gordon is 35, Kyle Lowry 38.
“We’re old,” George said. “I get it.”
This summer brought an overhaul of the 76ers, a virtual contractual blank slate after last year’s latest early-round exit to remake the team as Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse saw fit, around Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Without any explicit declarations of wanting to win now, the transactions implied enough.
Instead of hunting for bargain buys and upside hopes that would fit the 76ers’ salary-cap strictures, the club found players with pedigrees to surround its stars.
That means five players with 10 or more years of NBA service, including 12-year veteran Andre Drummond. It means two players (Lowry and Jackson) who have won NBA titles and three who have won Olympic gold medals (George and Lowry in 2016, Embiid in 2024).
“Those guys have championship pedigrees, championship experience,” Maxey said. “We’re going to need them. We’re going to need them to use their voice, need their play and need their leadership.”
There was, at least on Day 1, a notable difference in rhetoric from the differing campus. Embiid and Maxey made no declarations about expectations, no win-or-bust comments, no pontificating about this being the year, beyond Embiid pointing to his obvious lack of health in recent playoffs and setting that as his main goal.
The newcomers – perhaps because they’re too old to care, perhaps because it’s implicit in their agency to pick new teams – had no such compunction.
“I came here to win the championship, and that’s the only goal that I have,” Gordon said. “And I think this team is capable of doing that. We do have a lot of new guys on this team. So chemistry is going to be huge. Chemistry, health, once those are good, I think we can take our chances.”
“I would be hopeful that we’re one of the best teams in the NBA, top three in the East, for sure,” George said. “I think we should be able to compete for a championship.”
The veterans aren’t a monolith. Jackson and Lowry have rings; the other three don’t. George will start. Jackson, Gordon and Drummond will anchor a second unit that was a massive area of weakness last year.
Most have previous ties that brought them here. Lowry, signed last season after a buyout to finally return to his hometown, goes way back with Nurse, champions together in Toronto. Gordon felt comfortable with Morey from their time in Houston. It’s his fourth team since the start of the 2022-23 season and the Indianapolis native’s first time in the Eastern Conference.
“It’s easier to navigate,” Gordon said. “You know your role and your way into who you are on the team. And so as long as I’m able to be myself on the team, everything kind of works out.”
Drummond played 49 games for the 76ers in 2021-22 before being collateral damage of the Ben Simmons saga, shipped to Brooklyn so that the Sixers could offload the wantaway star. He and Jackson are close from six seasons together in Detroit.
“It’s like riding a bike,” Jackson said. “So you might fall every now and then, but you pick it up pretty quickly.”
“Jack and I are inseparable,” Drummond said. “We’ve been that way from the day he came to Detroit to the present day. We’ve kept a relationship, regardless of us playing for other teams, and him coming here to Philadelphia is probably one of the best things that could’ve happened, just in terms of the backup point guard role, for me coming off the bench, and then having a familiar point guard to play alongside. It’s going to be very dangerous in that pick and roll.”
Gordon averaged 11 points per game last year, mainly off the bench, for Phoenix. Jackson averaged 10.2 in Denver, after being part of the Nuggets’ 2023 championship. Two of the league’s consummate second-unit scorers, the possibilities for that unit are impressive, especially to take pressure off Maxey and Embiid.
George may be correct about them being old. But that doesn’t make them the same. Gordon and Drummond expressed hunger to win Monday. Jackson and Lowry know how that’s done.
There’s will be a balance to strike between experience and youth over the long haul of a season. But the Sixers think they can see the makings of that early.
“I think it’s a good mixture that we have here,” George said. “We have the veterans that know how to win when it matters, but then you have the guys that get us to that point where we can kind of put our imprint, either if it’s late in games or late in the season. So I think it’s just having that balance.”
Contact Matthew De George at [email protected]
