On Friday, LeBron James announced that he was going to join the Philadelphia 76ers for his 24th NBA season. It's a two-year deal worth $8 million and is very likely the last stop on James's NBA journey that has taken him from Cleveland to Miami to Cleveland again and Los Angeles. 

He's won titles in each of his three previous spots and will look to do the same for the 76ers, who haven't even been to the NBA Finals since 2000-01.

And if Philly is able to get that elusive NBA title, they probably have the Boston Celtics to thank. See, as noted by Shams Charania of ESPN, once the 76ers got Jaylen Brown from Boston in a trade this month, things changed for James. The entire equation of his free agency changed at that point. The 76ers are now a championship contender, complete with a roster of James, Brown, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.

Even though the Celtics won 56 games last season, and even though the New York Knicks won the championship, the 76ers are now the likely favorite in the Eastern Conference.

And the trade of Brown to Philly opened it all up it seems.

Of course, Boston wouldn't have known the ramifications of trading Brown to Philly, but this is just part of the reason why you don't see teams like to trade within their own divisions or conferences. Of course, the 76ers got better the moment they got Brown, but they also got more appealing to those around the league, which makes life tougher for Boston.

The Celtics and 76ers will play each other twice in the NBA's preseason slate, which means everyone will get an early look at the new-look 76ers, and then the two rivals will square off several times in the regular season.

The Celtics and 76ers could even be an Opening Night matchup, or perhaps a Christmas Day matchup, depending on how the league wants to market things.

Congratulations are in order for Celtics reserve forward Jordan Walsh, who earned a three-year contract extension from the organization on Thursday.

As noted by Charania, Walsh gets a three-year extension at $15 million in total. This is on top of the Celtics picking up his $2.4 million option for next season, meaning he has at least four more guaranteed years in a Celtics uniform.

Selected in the second round of the 2023 NBA Draft out of Arkansas, Walsh is still just 22 years old and growing. In three seasons, he's seen his role amplify each year: He played only nine games as a rookie, but elevated to 52 games as a sophomore and 68 games as a third-year player.

While the extension is excellent for Walsh, we did look at one question for the Celtics still as a result of it.

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