Do the Sixers need to be good rebounders to win a championship?

At halftime of the Sixers’ annual Blue x White scrimmage, a team staffer came up to me and said that LeBron James would be available to media at the end of the scrimmage’s third quarter.

Now, mind you, that event usually takes place in Delaware, at the Blue Coats’ facility. In that environment, it feels much more like a Sunday project to promote Philadelphia’s G League affiliate. In years past, you’d talk to Nick Nurse for a few minutes after the scrimmage and then you’d likely talk to some of the players down the roster — guys who were expected to spend a significant chunk of their seasons suiting up for the Coats.

Moving the 2026 scrimmage to Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia certainly gave the impression that the team’s regulars would play, for the love of the paying customer.

But James talking was, in these eyes, a shocker.

So I proceeded as quickly as the elevator would descend to the media room at the end of the third quarter, just in time for all seats to be taken. Everyone had the same thought. Stealing a few minutes to pick James’ brain was a bigger priority than watching the two-way contractors and training camp guys duke it out to end the scrimmage.

Not for the fans. For his teammates.

“I think the potential of our team defensively can be very high. We really commit ourselves to the defensive end, we can be a top 10, if not top five, defensive team if we commit every night,” James told reporters.

“It starts at the point of attack, picking guys up from the point of position, and then who’s ever picking the ball up, we have to have four guys behind them, eyes and ears, just like communication constantly throughout the whole possession.”

That would not be enough in James’ eyes.

“Then even after that, when teams miss, a lot of teams now in the NBA they crash three or four guys at times, and we have to put bodies on guys, and we have to rebound,” he continued.

“So, no matter how much firepower we have offensively, if we’re not cleaning the glass, if we’re not rebounding, we’re never going to get out in transition.”

James believes the Sixers have the length and athleticism. He’s confident in the intelligence on the court and the coaching on the sidelines.

But the vision he was sold on was the defense feeding the offense. So forget what you heard about the Sixers’ defense all summer. James won’t let this team rest on the lack of expectations.

The arguable greatest of all time can say whatever he wants. The personnel will dictate what actually happens. That is, likely the most powerful offense in the NBA with a supposed glaring weakness on the glass.

But Nurse doesn’t see it that way.

“I mean, we’re going to be a good rebounding team first of all,” the head coach said at a recent practice.

The Sixers ranked dead last in offensive rebounding rate in the preseason, according to Cleaning The Glass, finishing 26th on the defensive side of the glass.

“Well, we got challenged in the preseason for sure with the rebounding. But again … I guess I have to say it's the 1A priority,” Nurse said with a laugh at a recent practice.

“1 is getting our defense back and started, which was also a problem last year. So I keep saying this starting and ending our defense are No. 1 and No. 2 on our overall board of things we're trying to do better. So again, I don't want to read too much into it quite yet. I do see that there's a lot better defensive chances there. Again, just with the instincts and size and some of the things.”

Nurse saw potential in the Sixers’ offensive rebounding in the preseason, but nothing that sustained. He won’t sound fire alarms over preseason games. But clearly, he’s aware.

“So you'll see here pretty quickly where we are going to stack up. I know that they've accepted the challenge of making that at least one of their priorities,” he said. “They've been asked and done very well at all the drills. They've been drilled probably more than normal for those kind of things as well.”

There are steps they will need to take toward shoring up that area of the game.

While we haven’t see enough of the core group together to get a feel for their rebounding principles, they seem to like to crash three guys when the opposition’s shot goes up.

But before we get carried away with rebounding strategy, are we so sure being a good rebounding team so clearly correlates with winning a title?

Recent history doesn’t support that assumption.

There is a much more conclusive trend.

For years, it’s been accepted that you need to be either a top 10 defense or a top 10 offense to be considered a title contender in the NBA. The last 10 years of data support that (and, duh, people weren’t just pulling it out of thin air).

The point is that the Sixers have more than one way to make it to the game’s final stage. They can spend all season trying to become the best rebounding team they can be. Or, they can allocate their time toward being the best version of the team their roster says they should be.

The Thunder team that won it all ranked first in defensive turnover rate and seventh in opponent rim frequency. So they made up for lackluster rebounding by being a bunch of aces at other critical defensive indicators.

The same can be said for those Kawhi Raptors, who were ninth in defensive turnover rate, fifth in opponent rim accuracy, and fourth in opponent three-point accuracy.

Philadelphia can get away with not being great rebounders. The roster is such that they may not have much of a choice.

But having limitations as a group of rebounders will not pardon a season of nonsensical defense. They have too many capable players to get away with that. And they’ve already put their potential on tape against two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference.

Joel Embiid looked very mobile in the preseason and has mostly continued that display in the first week of the regular season. They will likely keep him in some version of drop coverage so that he can stay by the rim to deter shots and grab rebounds. But you’ve already seen him jump out to the perimeter and dig in against ball-handlers, stunting high ball screens and then booking it back to his assignment or staying out there to go step-for-step with whoever is triggering the possession.

They have scalable defenders up and down the roster. Perhaps they will be more switch heavy to shut down driving lanes, keeping off-ball defenders at home instead of forcing them into help-or-stay decisions. Of course, there are times that that will put 6-foot-2 Tyrese Maxey or the 41-year-old James in harm’s way as opponents toggle through perceived mismatches.

Then again, can I really discount Maxey’s defense after he helped silence the Cavaliers’ offense to lead a miraculous comeback in the team’s home opener on Thursday?

But wherever their defense maxes out, the offense should be untouchable. Full stop. There will be games of viral turnovers as they try to strike a balance between playing fast and making the right decisions. But whether they’re pushing the Porsche into sport mode or taking a leisurely Sunday ride, the offense should rule their world.

“I think that when things slow down, we should be a very good halfcourt offensive team,” Nurse said after a loss to the Boston Celtics in the preseason finale.

“Once we get to learn where we can go, and who's got the matchups and some actions we can mix, match and change here and there, we ought to be good in the halfcourt.”

He’ll be held to that.