LeBron James made his Sixers debut and showed the potential he has to transform this team, picking up 10 points and five assists in a 114-108 76ers loss to the Nets.

Here’s what I saw.

LeBron James, dealing

This isn’t the LeBron James who could drop 30 points damn near every night while lighting up the box score across the board, but boy, his passing genius has not faded at all. As the Sixers set up as a group for the first time in Brooklyn, James’ ability to unlock a defense with his vision was apparent right away, even when his drop-offs ultimately turned into hockey assists rather than direct helpers.

He has every pass in the game available to use at any given time. There was a bounce pass right into Embiid’s pocket out of a pick-and-roll, with Embiid hitting an extra drop-off pass to Jaylen Brown for a dunk. LeBron hooked up with VJ Edgecombe on two early buckets, finding the young guard with a hit-ahead in transition before finding him on a cut along the baseline moments later, LeBron no-looking his young guy into a dunk.

The onslaught would continue even as bench players started filtering into the lineup. James hit reserve big Jabari Walker with an absolute bullet pass to set up Walker for one of the easiest dunks you’re likely to see this season:

James’ passing emphasis seemed to rub off on everyone else in the starting lineup, for better and sometimes for worse. Philadelphia had 10 assists on 12 made baskets in the first quarter, an excellent start to their time together, with the occasional miscommunication and mistimed pass sprinkled in. As the first half wore on, they moved into overpassing territory, constantly searching for the extra pass even when one was not there. That is a problem I will ultimately live with right now.

Two of the big beneficiaries of the shift to a share-the-ball model are the exact guys who starred for Philadelphia last season. Edgecombe’s instincts off-ball are a huge weapon on a team with multiple players who command double teams, allowing him to slowly accumulate points throughout the game without needing to dominate time of possession. And while he spent a lot more time as a spot-up threat on Thursday, Tyrese Maxey looks to be taking a backseat to no one. Maxey was their most threatening player in transition and a bolt of lightning in the halfcourt, driving for a couple of excellent finishes around the rim as the Nets struggled to match him step-for-step.

It’s just hard to take your eyes off of LeBron, though, who the Sixers moved all over the floor to use as a hub from all angles. He was a four-on-three threat as a screener in pick-and-rolls, the lead ballhandler in some end-clock situations, a post-up threat against smaller players, and the first guy you wanted to see grabbing the ball after a miss was secured on defense. I do not think it is unreasonable to suggest he could put together a 10-assist-per-game season with this group around him. The team may look a little clunky, but he still looks like one of the best to ever do it.

The less good stuff

The telltale stat of the first half was 14 turnovers, with a whopping seven of those coming from Joel Embiid. No excuses for the big man in this one: Embiid was straight up sloppy with the ball, flubbing opportunities to draw fouls and misfiring on pass after pass as he adjusts to a star-studded lineup around him. You can find optimism on multiple fronts with the big fella, who looked pretty damn good physically on defense, and he has always been one of the slower-starting stars in the league.

Playing poorly is one thing, and I would imagine that Embiid will put this in the rearview quickly and put together a masterclass by mid-November at the earliest. What was more disappointing for me was the total lack of focus compared to his teammates, and particularly LeBron. I am not going to sit here and say that anyone was playing at 100% effort levels, but I thought you at least got relatively high focus from the other members of the starting five. Embiid picked up a three-second violation camping out in the lane on defense, and turned one turnover into an additional foul and tech, which were light crimes compared to his felonious passing. I hope that he is simply getting all the nonsense out of his system.

I would throw Jaylen Brown in more of the “mixed bag” category, as he managed to save his box score line with some third-quarter exploits after LeBron and Maxey sat down for the night at halftime. Embiid and Brown are heavier isolation players than anyone else on the team, and I think you can feel that in the time they take to execute on offense, in addition to the clunkiness as they try to find one another on offense. There were several possessions where one of Brown or Embiid thought they had an advantage while the other tried to keep going to work from the midpost, eventually settling into an uneasy truce one way or another. That is not to say, of course, that this duo is doomed to fail, but it is going to take more effort and elbow grease for them to build their chemistry.

At least in Brown’s case, he was able to find some joy as the third quarter wore on, getting into his iso bag and knocking down some shots before joining the other stars on the bench.

Role player report

The acquisition of Dean Wade fell down the excitement list after Philadelphia’s starry summer, but he is going to play a big and important role for this team as a glue guy. Wade immediately picked up multiple offensive rebounds in his first shift as a Sixers player, and he has had a quick trigger from three in the limited preseason sample, which has been one of the big knocks against him throughout his career. We’ll see if that holds over time, but all signs are positive through two preseason games.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope looks like a lock to be in the rotation on night one, and that might be about the other options as much as a potential bounceback from KCP. We’ll see if he’s in the same spot after Anfernee Simons returns from injury.

I continue to like what I’m seeing from rookie guard Labaron Philon, who got an opportunity to play first-half minutes with the big boys and looked comfortable doing so. Philon knocked down a catch-and-shoot three in a fluid give-and-go with Maxey during his first-half minutes, and he stayed engaged on defense, getting into the chest of a much taller Egor Demin at the point of attack. That said, the kid needs to make shots, and has struggled to do so through two preseason games. Philon has a lot of weight to put on his frame to become more rugged, but he doesn’t lack will and toughness, and that will help him hang on the floor in the regular season long enough to (hopefully) let his offense shine.

Also, Caleb Love is an NBA player. I don’t know that it matters for this team with all their guards, but he should be on someone’s roster.