LeBron's return to Cleveland highlights a new reality: Sixers' offense is a work in progress

CLEVELAND — About an hour before tipoff, 76ers forward LeBron James emerged from the visitors' tunnel, with a collection of fans gathered near the southeast corner of Rocket Arena cheering triumphantly. It was impossible to ignore what could have been.

It was like a scene from the Apple TV series "Dark Matter," where the protagonist finds himself in an alternate reality and ponders the possibility of playing it out. A world exists, somewhere in the basketball multiverse, where James decides to ride off into the sunset donning the Cavaliers' wine and gold — not the 76ers' red, white and blue.

On Friday night, aside from the very obvious fact that James indeed plays for Philadelphia now, everything else felt normal in Cleveland: the pregame warm-up, rife with greetings and on-court drills, the same ones he had done in this very building for years; the chalk toss in front of the Cavaliers' faithful. Even the in-arena announcer's energy when James was introduced last was met with raucous applause. And when he checked out with four minutes remaining, a standing ovation ensued.

But the most prominent theme from "Dark Matter" is that no matter how familiar a place looks and feels, it's not your reality. And James was reminded of that.

"Every game has its own challenges," James said following the Sixers' 119-95 loss . "I don't think [we were sharp] offensively as a group and I know I damn sure wasn't good at all. Look at the film and try to get better for Sunday."

It would be somewhat nit-picky to overly dissect the 76ers' performance Friday after an 8-2 start — especially considering how much doubt and uncertainty existed about multiple superstars co-existing. But something has to be said about an offense (which ranked 21st in efficiency before tip-off and will continue to drop after mustering only 95 points) that has yet to jell.

In its second meeting with Cleveland, Philly didn't operate overwhelmingly loose with the ball (with 15 total turnovers), but there was no purpose to its ball movement. Most of the Sixers' half-court actions were stagnant and head coach Nick Nurse's rotations — designed to stagger their superpowers — only led to less flow and control.

Joel Embiid, who finished with just six points on 0-for-9 shooting, continued his floor-spacing woes. He's now shooting an abysmal 3-for-28 from deep, which puts even more pressure on the likes of James, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown to keep defenses honest. The 76ers won't win many games where Embiid is that inefficient and dominates the ball like he did, with a whopping 41.7 usage rate in the opening 12 minutes.

"I believe in myself," Embiid said. "But when you're in these moments and nothing is going in, it's hard to not look at yourself and be down. But you have to keep going and working."

But isn't this why LeBron came here in the first place? It wasn't because the 76ers were necessarily seeking another offensive weapon — they were in desperate need of his offensive mind.

Coming into Friday night's game, James ranked in the 96th percentile in assist rate and his assist-to-usage ratio was at the highest of his career . Conventional logic says maybe give the guy who's among the league leaders in potential assists, rim assist rate and offensive RAPM the ball as much as possible (his current output is 10% lower than his career usage) — as well as keep Maxey on the floor as much as possible (Philly's already woeful offense falls off a cliff when he sits ).

Some of the 76ers' playmaking metrics are noisy, partially because the sample size is still small after only 10 games and partially because of their sheer star power. For instance, of lineups that have played at least 50 minutes together, the 76ers' starters are taking good shots (seventh in shot quality per PBP Stats). They're also eighth in passes made per game and seventh in secondary assists, which indicates a concerted effort to move the ball and generate good looks. This is more important than ranking 18th in assists and 21st in potential assists, both of which stem from shot-making luck.

Friday was an outlier in that James coughed the ball up six times, but his other offensive struggles — eight points on 12 shots — weren't that much different than what the 41-year-old has endured this season, with the lowest points per shot attempt of a long, successful career.

"Too many turnovers on my behalf," James said. "And I didn't put in a rhythm offensively all game. Couple of them were careless, couple of them were trying to make the right play and not being successful with it."

The 76ers have started the season on a high note and, thanks to an impressive, aggressive defense, have silenced a few naysayers in the opening weeks of the new campaign. But until their offense can find a happy medium, one that keeps James at the mental wheel and highlights the other stars in their respective roles — or if he can rediscover his scoring efficiency — their dreams of serious contention could be another alternate reality door.