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With Friday’s news of LeBron James taking his talents to South Philly, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to note that the four-time MVP and four-time champ’s signing with the 76ers is one of the most significant transactions in franchise history.
The Sixers, however, are no strangers to making huge moves. They have three NBA championships — one as the Syracuse Nationals in 1955 and two as the 76ers (1967 and 1983) — and the franchise made a deal that led to all three titles.
Next season will be the franchise’s 78th in the NBA. And in a proud sports town where big basketball transactions have been front-page news, here are some of the 76ers’ biggest deals in their storied history.
Why LeBron James couldn’t retire
Shakeia Taylor and Jeshua Kidd
1948: Nationals acquire draft rights to Dolph Schayes
This was 15 years before the Nationals moved to Philadelphia to become the 76ers, but it was the franchise’s first big swing.
Schayes, who would become the first NBA player to score 15,000 points and was the league’s all-time leading scorer for six seasons, was drafted by the National Basketball League’s Tri-Cities Blackhawks. Those rights, however, were traded to the Nationals.
The New York Knicks of the Basketball Association of America also took the Bronx-born Schayes with the No. 4 pick in the 1948 draft. The Knicks offered the BAA’s rookie max of $5,000, but in a bidding war between the competing leagues, the Nats offered a first-year salary of $7,000 plus a $500 bonus.
“I figured out that $2,500 was a lot of money, and professional basketball might not have a long life,” Schayes told The New York Times in 2015. “So I figured I might as well take the best offer.”
Schayes spent his entire 15-year career with the franchise, including his final season in Philadelphia. With Schayes, the Nats made three finals, winning in 1955, and never missed the playoffs. He made 12 All-NBA teams and was a 12-time All-Star. Schayes, nicknamed “The Rainbow Kid” because of his high-arching shot, also holds the distinction of making the first bucket in NBA All-Star history.
1965: Wilt acquired from San Francisco Warriors
Wilt Chamberlain, the greatest athlete in Philadelphia’s history (or possibly any city’s history), moved to the West Coast with the Warriors after the 1962 season.
After two seasons and 6,534 points (40.8 points per game for 160 games in his first two full seasons in the Bay Area), there were rumblings Wilt was seeking a way out of San Francisco. Early newspaper reports had the Sixers, Cincinnati Royals and the Los Angeles Lakers as interested parties.
But Wilt seemed destined to return to his hometown. On Jan 13, 1965, in news that made the next day’s front page, the Sixers acquired Chamberlain for three players and an estimated $300,000 in a deal consummated at Stan Musial’s restaurant in St. Louis, where the NBA All-Star Game had just been played.
Wilt would go on to win three consecutive MVPs in his three full seasons with the Sixers. The 1967 team, often considered one of the greatest in league history, went 68-13 during the regular season, crushed the Boston Celtics in the East Division finals in five games and defeated the Warriors in six games in the NBA Finals.
1976: Sixers sign Julius Erving
One could argue (and some have) that Julius Erving — Dr. J — was the biggest star in professional basketball in 1976. In May of that year, one headline by The New York Times gushed: “Erving: His Moves Stir the Emotions.”
He was a playground legend in his native New York, a three-time ABA MVP and a two-time ABA champion by the time his New York Nets were one of the four teams from the foundering ABA invited before the 1976-77 season to join the NBA.
Two problems for the Nets, though: Erving wasn’t happy with his current contract, and Nets owner Roy Boe was in financial straits. Boe was on the hook for the $3.8 million he needed to pay the Knicks for territorial fees to enter the NBA. How was he going to pay the NBA and his unhappy star? In short: He wasn’t.
Erving staged a holdout. Boe allowed three teams — the Milwaukee Bucks (who drafted Erving in 1972), the Lakers and the Sixers — to talk to Erving. In the end, the Sixers signed Erving to a six-year, $3.5 million deal, in addition to paying $2.1 million to Boe, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer.
Erving would lead the Sixers to the NBA Finals in 1977, his first season, where Philly lost to the Portland Trail Blazers in six games. The Sixers would make two more finals appearances (1980 and 1982), and Erving would win NBA MVP in 1981, but they could never reach the mountaintop.
Until …
1982: Moses Malone acquired via sign-and-trade with Rockets
The Sixers needed one player who could get them over the hump to capture an NBA title, as they were 0-3 with Dr. J in the league’s ultimate series.
Meanwhile in Texas, Moses Malone felt underappreciated by the Houston Rockets, who, despite his excellence, never won more than 49 games in his six seasons in Houston. After the 1982 season, Malone and the Rockets hadn’t yet agreed on a deal.
“I bet this is the first time an MVP was on unemployment,” Malone cracked while accepting his MVP award, his first since 1979.
With Malone and the Rockets at odds, and the Sixers needing a workhorse center, Philly signed Malone to an offer sheet worth $13.2 million for six years in early September. On Sept. 15, the Rockets matched the offer, then traded Malone to the Sixers for Caldwell Jones and a 1983 first-round pick.
With Malone, the Sixers tore through the league, going 65-17 in the regular season. Malone won his third NBA MVP. When asked for his prediction for the playoffs, Malone was famously quoted as saying, “Fo’, fo’, fo’.”
He was close. Philly went 12-1 in the postseason, sweeping the Lakers in the finals to get Doc and Moses the sole NBA titles of their career. Their championship rings feature the inscription: “Fo’, Fi’, Fo’.”
1986: Malone traded to Washington; Sixers trade No. 1 pick
Watch yourself if you ever mention June 16, 1986, to Sixers fans. They’d have every right to be furious about that date in Philadelphia sports history.
On that manic Monday, the franchise slammed the door on the Moses Malone era and traded the No. 1 pick in the 1986 draft to the Cleveland Cavaliers. (If social media had existed then, oh my!)
“Sixers Swap Moses” blared the Philadelphia Daily News headline the next day.“On a day with either infamy or glory written all over it,” wrote the Daily News’ Rich Hofmann.
It didn’t take long to figure out which one it would be.
Fans were devastated to see Malone, still only 30 at the time, traded to the Washington Bullets — along with Terry Catledge, the No. 21 pick of the ’86 draft and a first-round pick in ’88 — for Jeff Ruland and Cliff Robinson.
“I don’t understand the logic,” Charles Muhammad told the Philadelphia Daily News. “I don’t think there is any.”
The Sixers then traded the No. 1 pick to Cleveland for Roy Hinson. The Cavs took Brad Daugherty. While Daugherty retired after eight seasons because of injury, he was a five-time All-Star.
“It was an absolute disaster bomb of two offseason moves,” The Athletic’s Law Murray, a Philadelphia native, said. “It obliterated Charles Barkley’s ceiling in Philly and ensured Dr. J would go out quietly.”
1996: Sixers draft Allen Iverson
After Barkley was traded to the Suns in 1992, the Sixers were waiting for their next superstar.
In astacked 1996 NBA Draft that would feature three future MVPs and four future Hall of Famers, the Sixers had won the No. 1 pick. With that pick, the Sixers selected a future MVP and Hall of Famer in Allen Iverson.
Despite being the draft’s top pick and a First Team All-America selection at Georgetown, few players embodied the Philadelphia spirit than “The Answer,” who was 6 feet tall in shoes and weighed 165 pounds. Slight, lightning quick and with mesmerizing ballhanding, Iverson attacked defenses on the perimeter and in the paint with equal parts of fearlessness and relentlessness, guile and gumption.
Allen Iverson was a seven-time All-NBA player and the 2001 league MVP with the Philadelphia 76ers. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
There was no better example of this than Iverson, during his rookie season, attacking Michael Jordan off the dribble in one of the more memorable and iconic moments of Iverson’s Hall of Fame career.
With Iverson at the helm, the Sixers began a steady rise each season through the East. Winning 22 games in his first season, Iverson and the Sixers won 31 the next. They went 28-22 in the lockout shortened 1998-99 season, their first winning campaign since 1990-91. They won 49 games in 1999-2000 before going 56-26 in 2000-01, grabbing the No. 1 seed in the East and Iverson winning the NBA’s MVP. Iverson would lead the Sixers to the NBA Finals, where they would lose in five games to the Lakers.
In addition to being transcendent on the court, Iverson was a cultural icon.
“His flair. His confidence. His uniqueness,” Stephen Curry told The Athletic in 2021. “He represented culture on the basketball court and off. He was unashamed and unapologetic about who he was — even when the rules were almost set up for him to fail in the sense of how he ran his life.
“You want to make sure that he is celebrated, and I know this generation of players definitely … it’s probably unanimous how much of an impact AI had in some way, shape or form on their game or their interest in basketball.”
2001: 76ers acquire Mutombo from Hawks
Led by Iverson, the Sixers were great, 41-14 on Feb. 21, 2001, and comfortably the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. But the favorite in the West, the defending-champion Lakers, had Shaquille O’Neal. If the Sixers and Lakers were to meet in the NBA Finals, who would Philly deploy on O’Neal, especially after Theo Ratliff, who was leading the NBA in blocked shots, had season-ending surgery on his broken wrist?
The Sixers went searching for a center. They found one in Atlanta in 7-foot-2 Dikembe Mutombo. The Sixers sent Ratliff, Nazr Mohammed, Toni Kukoč and Pepe Sánchez for Mutombo and Roshown McLeod.
It was risky. The 34-year-old Mutombo was a free agent at the end of the season, while Ratliff was an All-Star. But the Sixers, with Iverson playing at an MVP level, couldn’t wait. Mutombo was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, and while no one could stop prime Shaq, Mutombo, who would win his fourth DPOY award in 2001, arguably had the best remaining chance to slow O’Neal.
It was an all-in move, and it almost worked. The gritty Sixers needed seven games to dispatch the Toronto Raptors in the East semis and seven more to dispatch the Bucks in the conference finals before falling in five to O’Neal and the Lakers in the NBA Finals.
2014: Sixers draft Joel Embiid
There could have been numerous choices for “The Process” Sixers, but Embiid has been the literal and figurative centerpiece since he first took the floor in the 2016-17 season.
After missing his first two seasons because of a foot injury that wouldn’t heal properly, Embiid’s talent was evident. Despite playing only 31 games his rookie season, he finished third in Rookie of the Year voting, averaging 20.2 points and 7.8 rebounds.
Since that season, he’s made five All-NBA teams and seven All-Star Games. He’s won back-to-back scoring titles, two rebounding titles and, in 2023, the NBA MVP.
Availability, however, has been an issue throughout his career. After missing those first two seasons, Embiid has played 490 of 820 regular-season games in his 10 seasons.But when Embiid plays, he’s one of the game’s best. He’s a great rebounder and one of the best shooting big men in NBA history.
He, as much as any Sixer on the current roster, is the key to Philly’s title hopes. The Sixers haven’t advanced past the second round in Embiid’s tenure, but with LeBron and Jaylen Brown now in the fold, it’s possible the Sixers do reach the ultimate goal of The Process: an NBA title.
2018: Sixers trade for Jimmy Butler
As The Athletic’s Sam Amick put it in November 2018: “Jimmy Butler is miserable — again.”
The source of that misery: Butler’s unhappiness with the Minnesota Timberwolves. At the time, he had many issues with the franchise, most notably that they weren’t winning.
Hours after Amick’s story, the Sixers pounced, trading for Butler and Justin Patton for Robert Covington, Dario Šarić, Jerryd Bayless and a 2022 second-round pick to the Timberwolves.
Butler became an immediate veteran presence on a team that featured Embiid and Ben Simmons, who won Rookie of the Year for the 2017-18 season. The three formed a formidable frontcourt that could score, pass and defend. With Tobias Harris and JJ Redick in the starting lineup, the Sixers had one of the better rosters in the early Process era.
Still, the third-seeded Sixers took the Raptors to seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals before a miraculous four-bounce buzzer-beater took care of one of the Sixers’ best chances to advance to the Eastern Conference finals so far.
2026: Sixers acquire Jaylen Brown from Celtics; LeBron joins as free agent
There have been a ton of bits and bytes transmitted about the Brown and James moves already, but after being swept by the Knicks in the East semis, the Sixers were faced with an uneasy summer.
Props to new president of basketball operations in Mike Gansey, who was not only able to pry the 2024 NBA Finals MVP from a hated rival, but also had the roster in a good enough position to land one of the greatest players in history.
Paraphrasing a line from 40 years ago, “In a summer with either infamy or glory written all over it …”
Bonus: Nationals move to Philadelphia, become 76ers
We couldn’t do this list without this happening.
It’s hard to believe, but for one season, Philadelphia, a city with deep professional basketball rootsdating back to the end of the 19th century, did not have an NBA team.
After Wilt Chamberlain’s historic 1961-62 season, Philadelphia Warriors founder Eddie Gottlieb sold the team for a then-record $850,000, and the franchise was transferred to San Francisco, with Wilt going with it. The NBA had nine teams for the 1962-63 season, but not one in Philadelphia.
A year later, on May 15, 1963, Danny Biasone sold his Nationals for $500,000, and the Nats were moved to Philadelphia ending the city’s season in the pro hoops wilderness.
Eschewing the Nationals name, the franchise held a contest to find a new one. Walter Stahlberg of West Collingswood, N.J., one of nine people to suggest “76ers,” won the contest and was rewarded with two tickets to a 76ers-Warriors game in San Francisco.
But most importantly, Philly was back in the pro hoops game.
Other transactions considered: Nationals draft Sam Greer (1958), 76ers draft Billy Cunningham (1965), Sixers trade Wilt to Lakers (1968), Sixers sign George McGinnis (1975), Sixers trade for Bobby Jones (1978), Sixers draft Maurice Cheeks (1978), Sixers draft Andrew Toney (1980), Sixers draft Charles Barkley (1984), Sixers trade Barkley (1992), Sixers draft Tyrese Maxey (2020), Sixers draft VJ Edgecombe (2025)
