Perhaps there was no weirder possible conclusion to this saga: LeBron James is moving to Philadelphia. Shams Charania reported Friday that James will sign with the 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option. The 41-year-old won't be ring-chasing with Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, nor any other top-10 player, nor his hometown Cavaliers. Instead he'll join an undeniably talented but aesthetically hideous assortment of Sixers looking to take advantage of a reshuffled Eastern Conference.

Can't say I understand it on any level: narrative, on-court, commercial, or otherwise. Perhaps it has something to with James's long-standing belief in cumulative star talent rather than a specific mesh of skillsets; remember when he thought Russell Westbrook would work well alongside him? Perhaps he's sympathetic to Jaylen Brown, and is picking up a sword in the anti-"analytics" battle for the game's soul. But this is certainly not his best route to winning a fifth title. His most talented teammate, Joel Embiid, played 38 games in the last regular season. Maybe James was really enamored with one or two of his performances in last season's playoffs, but there are more medically sound bets to make when it comes to a late-career title hunt.

Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are spry young guards, and they'll be a delight with James in transition, but neither is the sort of knockdown off-ball shooter that optimizes James in the halfcourt. I look forward to the facial expressions he'll make the first time a Brown iso fritters away the end of a close game. The Sixers' starting lineup will leave lots of weak points for opposing offenses to attack—do not tell me that 32-year-old Embiid will be anchoring a championship defense. Again, there's a lot of talent on this roster; I just have no idea how it will all fit together. That's Nick Nurse's job, if he can keep it.

There's still a northeast Ohio aspect to this transaction, albeit a faint one. Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, who was hired at the end of May, played high school basketball in a Cleveland suburb in the class two years above James; he even came in second to James in Ohio's 2001 Mr. Basketball voting. Though the Philadelphia Inquirer, which spoke to Mike's brother Steve, reports that there's no evidence the future executive and future great ever competed directly, the two "shared a mutual respect."

Finally, I'd like to take a second to appreciate that, while announcing the most surprising free-agency signing of the past decade, Charania managed to shoehorn in the name of the podcast hosted by James's agent Rich Paul. OK, please proceed to the comments; I know that's why you're all here.