Sixers give LeBron a reason to rest easy

LeBron James sat out, and the Sixers still had more than enough offense. That might be the most encouraging part of their 3-0 start.

Nobody needs to draw sweeping conclusions from three games in October. But Philadelphia didn’t bring James aboard so every night would require him to rescue the operation.

Saturday offered a look at how that can work.

With James sidelined for lower back and sciatica management, Joel Embiid supplied 28 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists against the Bucks. Jaylen Brown scored 27 and Tyrese Maxey added 26, as Michael Kaskey-Blomain of Sports Illustrated detailed.

That’s a pretty good collection of backup plans.

Then there’s VJ Edgecombe, who made five of 10 threes and grabbed 13 rebounds after opening the season 1-of-7 from deep. His shooting gives defenses another problem when they’re already occupied with Philadelphia’s stars.

The Sixers won’t get those numbers from everyone every night. They shouldn’t need to. The point of assembling this much talent is having someone else available to carry a little more of the load.

For one night, James could watch it happen from the sideline. The more often Philadelphia can manage that, the less pressure there is to have him play every regular-season game.