Philadelphia 76ers: Five things you need to know

• Four Australians have played for the 76ers, from Mark Bradtke in 1996-97 to Ben Simmons.
• Brett Brown, a former Boomers head coach, coached both of them in Philadelphia.
• LeBron James signed a two-year deal with the 76ers in July 2026, his 24th season.

There was a stretch when the Philadelphia 76ers were the most Australian team in the NBA.

Ben Simmons went first overall in 2016. Jonah Bolden was drafted 36th the following year, the first Australian taken in that draft. Matisse Thybulle arrived in 2019. The head coach was Brett Brown, who had coached the Boomers. For a few seasons, an Australian could turn on a Sixers game and find four reasons to stay.

None of them are here now. What remains is a franchise that has just added LeBron James at 41, on a minimum contract, for his 24th NBA season.

Philadelphia has never done anything quietly.

Australians who have played for the Philadelphia 76ers

Four Australians have worn this uniform, and one of them was the first pick in the draft.

Mark Bradtke got there first, and by two decades.

One of the dominant centres in NBL history across a 20-year career from 1988 to 2007, the 208cm Bradtke signed with Philadelphia for the 1996-97 season, reportedly for USD $247,500. It was his only NBA season, and he averaged 1.6 points and 1.9 rebounds wearing No.50.

He returned home and finished with 554 NBL games across Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane, a career that makes his single American season a footnote to the wrong story. In Philadelphia terms, though, he was the first.

Ben Simmons is the most significant Australian ever drafted by an NBA team.

Philadelphia took him first overall in 2016, the reward for the tanking project known as the Process. A knee injury cost him his first season, but what followed was genuine stardom: Rookie of the Year in 2018, three consecutive All-Star selections from 2019 to 2021, All-NBA Third Team in 2020, two All-Defensive First Team selections and the league steals title in 2020. He recorded 32 triple-doubles and scored a career-high 42 against Utah.

Across 275 regular-season games for the 76ers he averaged 15.9 points on 56% shooting, 5.9 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 1.7 steals.

Then came June 20, 2021.

With 3:31 left in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against Atlanta, the 76ers a basket down at home, the 208cm Simmons turned baseline against a guard 27cm shorter and passed up the dunk, kicking the ball to a cutting Matisse Thybulle. Thybulle was fouled and made one of two free throws. Philadelphia lost 103-96. Simmons had taken four shots all game and finished with five points, eight rebounds and 13 assists.

He never played for Philadelphia again. The standoff that followed ran 235 days, through a suspension, fines and a period out indefinitely while he worked with mental health professionals, before he was finally traded to Brooklyn on February 10, 2022 with Andre Drummond, Seth Curry and two first-round picks for James Harden and Paul Millsap.

Simmons is now an unrestricted free agent. Our full account of how it unravelled is here.

Matisse Thybulle was the Australian on the other end of that pass.

A perimeter defensive specialist, Thybulle arrived in 2019 and spent parts of four seasons with the 76ers before moving on to Portland. The Boomers bronze medallist signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in July 2026 on a one-year deal worth USD $3.3 million.

Jonah Bolden arrived a year after Simmons.

Selected 36th overall in the 2017 draft, Bolden became the first Australian taken that year and joined a roster that already had Simmons and a coach in Brett Brown who had spent years with the Australian national team. He played parts of two seasons in Philadelphia.

Simmons and Bolden also fronted a group of Australian NBA players who committed USD $750,000 to bushfire relief at home in early 2020.

Brett Brown is not Australian, but he belongs in this section. He coached the Boomers before taking over the 76ers in 2013, and he ran the franchise through the entire Process era and all three Australians' time there.

2026-27 team snapshot

Philadelphia has spent this offseason doing the least likely thing available.

LeBron James announced on July 24, 2026 that he was joining the 76ers on a two-year deal worth USD $8 million with a player option in the second year. He will earn USD $3,876,529 in 2026-27, the veteran minimum. He had told the Lakers on June 30 that he would not be returning, and he arrives for a 24th NBA season at 41.

Mike Gansey, in his first offseason as president of basketball operations, also signed Anfernee Simons and Dean Wade and drafted LaBaron Philon at No.22. Andre Drummond left for New York.

The existing core is Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, coached by Nick Nurse. Maxey led the team in scoring last season at 28.3 points per game.

Embiid's availability remains the season. Philadelphia went 24-14 in the games he played.

Why the 76ers matter

Every NBA franchise has a story.

The Boston Celtics built a dynasty. The Los Angeles Lakers became basketball's glamour club. The San Antonio Spurs defined sustained excellence.

Philadelphia has always been the loudest argument in the room.

This is the franchise of Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points, of Julius Erving and Moses Malone, of Allen Iverson stepping over Tyronn Lue. It is also the franchise that spent years losing on purpose, told its fans to trust the process, and turned deliberate failure into Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.

For Australian readers it is something else again. Philadelphia bet the first pick in the draft on an Australian, and for a while the most interesting Australian in world basketball played here.

[IMAGE: 76ers By The Numbers graphic]

Wilt, Doctor J and the championships

The franchise began as the Syracuse Nationals in 1946 and won a title there in 1955 before moving to Philadelphia in 1963.

Wilt Chamberlain arrived and the 1967 team won the championship and is still argued about as one of the best ever assembled. Julius Erving brought the next era, and in 1983 a side featuring Erving, Moses Malone and Maurice Cheeks went 12-1 through the playoffs to win the third title.

That was 43 years ago.

The Allen Iverson era

Allen Iverson was the first pick of the 1996 draft and became the most watched player in the league, all 183cm of him.

He carried a limited roster to the 2001 NBA Finals, won the MVP that season and beat the Lakers in Game 1 before losing the next four. It remains the franchise's last Finals appearance.

The Process

In 2013 Philadelphia decided to lose deliberately.

Sam Hinkie's plan was to accumulate high draft picks by fielding uncompetitive teams, and the results were grim: 19 wins, then 18, then 10. The phrase "trust the process" started as a defence and became a civic identity.

It produced Joel Embiid third overall in 2014 and Ben Simmons first overall in 2016. Brett Brown coached through all of it.

Whether it worked is still the argument. Philadelphia got two franchise players out of it, and has not reached a conference final since 2001.

The years since

The Simmons trade brought James Harden, which did not work. Paul George arrived in 2024. Embiid has been brilliant when available and unavailable too often.

Last season captured it. Philadelphia started 9-8, sat 10th in the East in late November, recovered to finish 45-37 and reached the playoffs through the play-in as the seventh seed. They won a first-round series and were then swept by New York in the conference semi-finals, losing Game 4 by 30.

The Knicks went on to win the championship.

The greatest 76ers of all time

Wilt Chamberlain is the most statistically absurd player in the sport's history and won a title here.

Julius Erving made the franchise glamorous and Moses Malone made it a champion.

Allen Iverson is the most beloved, a 183cm guard who dragged an ordinary roster to the Finals.

Joel Embiid is the modern standard, an MVP centre whose career has been defined as much by absence as dominance.

And Ben Simmons is the one Australians will keep arguing about, first overall, Rookie of the Year, three All-Star teams, and a single pass to a fellow Australian that overshadowed all of it.

Five Fast Facts

1. Three Australians have played for the 76ers: Ben Simmons, Matisse Thybulle and Jonah Bolden.

2. Brett Brown coached the Australian Boomers before taking charge of the 76ers in 2013.

3. The franchise has won three championships, in 1955, 1967 and 1983.

4. Allen Iverson took Philadelphia to its most recent NBA Finals in 2001.

5. LeBron James joined the 76ers in July 2026 on a veteran-minimum contract for his 24th season.

Historical Timeline

• 1946: Franchise founded as the Syracuse Nationals.
• 1955: Win a championship in Syracuse.
• 1963: Move to Philadelphia.
• 1967: Win a championship with Wilt Chamberlain.
• 1983: Win a third championship with Julius Erving and Moses Malone.
• 1996: Draft Allen Iverson first overall.
• 2001: Reach the NBA Finals and lose to the Lakers.
• 2013: Begin the Process under Sam Hinkie, with Brett Brown as coach.
• 2014: Draft Joel Embiid third overall.
• 2016: Draft Ben Simmons first overall.
• 2017: Draft Jonah Bolden 36th overall.
• 2021: Simmons passes up a dunk in Game 7 against Atlanta, and never plays for the club again.
• 2022: Trade Ben Simmons to Brooklyn for James Harden.
• 2026: Sign LeBron James.

Looking ahead

Philadelphia enters the season with the oldest new signing in the league and the same question it has carried for a decade.

LeBron James at 41 on a minimum deal is either the smartest piece of business of the offseason or a headline in search of a team. Embiid's body will decide most of it. Maxey is a genuine star. Nick Nurse has won a championship elsewhere.

The Australian chapter here is closed for now. Simmons is an unrestricted free agent, Thybulle is a Laker, Bolden's Philadelphia years are long behind him and Brett Brown has moved on.

But for a decade this was the franchise Australians watched first. The Process delivered an Australian the first pick in the draft, and whatever came after, that is not a small thing to have happened.