LeBron James is 41 and feeling young in Philly. He had his best game yet with the 76ers

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — LeBron James turns 42 in exactly two months and is in his record 24th NBA season. He's already played the best games of his career.

James delivered his best one yet — yes, in a short sample size — with the 76ers on Friday night.

James turned in a vintage performance against the NBA champion Knicks.

He bullied his way past Mikal Bridges in the post for a bucket in the first half and chased down OG Anunoby for a blocked shot in the third quarter, plays that served as early hints he still has elite game when the Sixers need it most.

After the Sixers let a 14-point lead slip away in the fourth, it was James — not Joel Embiid or even Tyrese Maxey — who closed out the champs.

James then capped his best game of the season with the go-ahead bucket with 1:10 remaining and V.J Edgecombe buried an insurance 3-pointer for the four-point lead. James sealed the 98-93 win in an NBA Cup group game with a tip-in and nearly pulled off a triple-double with nine rebounds and eight assists.

“He's been good,” coach Nick Nurse said, “but that was his best game for sure.”

There aren't many meaningful personal statistics for James to chase so this one will have to do: He tied Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the fifth-oldest player in NBA history to record a 20-point game.

They won't etch that one on the Hall of Fame plaque.

But a fifth NBA championship with his fourth team — after winning rings in Miami, Cleveland and with the Lakers — would be one for the record book.

The Sixers are off to a 5-1 start even with their regular starting five having started together only three times this season. They are already 2-0 this season against the NBA champion Knicks after beating them in New York on opening night.

James signed a free-agent deal with the Sixers in large part to have fun, play with close friends such as Maxey, and win. After the first month of the season, consider James undefeated in those categories.

“I'm having a great time,” James said. “I love what we're bringing to the table every night. I love our competitive spirit. Guys show up to work. Guys are ready to work hard. It's a fun group, too. I'm like a big-ass kid, to be completely honest. These guys are great to be around and I'm more than happy I made the decision to come here."

Embiid shot only 3 of 12 from the floor and scored only 10 points. Those are the type of numbers that doomed the Sixers for most of the last 10 years. Not this season. Not with Maxey dropping 27 points or Edgecombe stepping up like a seasoned veteran and burying the crucial late 3.

And certainly not with LeBron James in the lineup.

“I've been in some huge games this sport has ever seen,” James said. “For me to be able to be a calming factor for our team, late game, it's just the experience that I have. If that's me with the ball, me without the ball, being able to put guys in the right position. Just talk them through it.”

Maxey walked shirtless into the locker room and needed a cover-up before he talked to the media swarm in front of the team backdrop.

No worries.

James tossed Maxey a sleeveless Sixers shirt from his locker.

Just one more assist from James on his best night yet as a Sixer.

See AP’s full NBA coverage here

Philadelphia 76ers' VJ Edgecombe, right, looks at LeBron James, left, after James made a basket during the second half of an NBA Cup basketball game against the New York Knicks, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia 76ers' Tyrese Maxey dunks during the first half of an NBA Cup basketball game against the New York Knicks, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

New York Knicks' Josh Hart, left, sits on the court after being fouled by Philadelphia 76ers' LeBron James (not shown) as teammates Karl-Anthony Towns, center, and Jalen Brunson, right, look to help him up during the second half of an NBA Cup basketball game, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia 76ers' LeBron James does his chalk toss prior to an NBA Cup basketball game against the New York Knicks, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Philadelphia 76ers' LeBron James (23) does his chalk toss prior to an NBA Cup basketball game against the New York Knicks, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Fawn Douglas puts an urban spin on traditional basketmaking.

Instead of using desert plants, she tightly weaves heavy conduit wire to form the base of a basket she plans to display at the new Wai Gallery in Las Vegas. There, she and her partner, A.B. Wilkinson, showcase pieces from Indigenous artists and host free art programs, from collage projects to sidewalk chalk paintings.

Douglas, a Las Vegas Paiute Tribe citizen, says she sees how art can heal and bring people together.

“They’re off their phones. They’re having actual conversations together,” Douglas said.

The gallery and IndigenousAF storefront dismantle stereotypes, including that Native Americans and Alaska Natives are a monolith and all live on reservations, she said. It opened just ahead of National Native American Heritage Month, which celebrates the diverse histories and cultures of hundreds of tribal communities across the U.S. in November.

Native American art isn’t just geometric, Douglas said, and each piece has a narrative.

A painting behind her featured a silhouetted Joshua tree and a backlit mountain range with a brilliant night sky. It’s a desert twist on Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” — and it acted as a call to action for turning Gold Butte into a national monument in Nevada.

A black-and-white underwater photograph depicts a Hawaiian dancer, seemingly floating in space. It is called “Ha’ina ’ia mai,” which translates to “let the story be told.”

Here is a collection of short stories highlighting joy in Native American and Alaska Native communities:

When the salmonberries are ripe in Kipnuk, Alaska, the Paul family isn’t far behind.

They are one of several families who returned to practice subsistence gathering a year after Typhoon Halong struck their village, damaging 90% of its buildings, floating some houses miles away and leaving nearly all of the community’s residents displaced.

It’s been an especially good year for salmonberries because of heavy snow last winter, locals say.

From a boat, Burt Paul scanned the tundra for the orange berries — or naunraqs as they’re called in coastal Yup’ik — like orange carpet on a sea of green grass. They giggled as the dogs ferociously defended them against two musk oxen grazing on shore.

The Pauls typically camp out for several days and pick berries. But this summer was broken up into shorter trips when Burt Paul’s scattered family could return together.

The family never misses a year of berry picking, they said.

“Coming home, seeing everyone, the community — it’s heartwarming,” Caley Paul said.

When the day ended, the family had a five-gallon bucket filled to the brim. Not as much as most years but enough for Burt Paul to make his famous naunraq pie. Enough for everyone to have a taste.

— Samantha Watson, KYUK

Foster care didn’t separate Rosa Soto Alvarez from her Pascua Yaqui community.

She and her siblings were placed with another family on the tribe’s reservation in Arizona, where their foster mother served up tortillas and fry bread with pots of chile con carne. They grew up surrounded by saguaros and the sounds of relatives speaking the Yaqui language. They took road trips to powwows.

Under the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, tribal children taken into foster care have the right to remain with Indigenous families.

That experience has guided Alvarez’s life work. At 50, she is a mother and grandmother who has cared for 25 foster children in her home. She leads the tribe’s ICWA Committee, coordinating statewide advocacy that supports the federal child welfare law and encourages states to adopt versions of it.

Nationwide, Native children are disproportionately represented in state foster care systems.

“I’m just a rez girl trying to make a difference,” she said. “There’s so many children out there who don’t have a voice, and I know I have to be that voice.”

— Nancy Marie Spears, The Imprint

A group of Indigenous girls carried a vessel of river water to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council and walked out with rights for the river.

The council unanimously passed a resolution this year recognizing the rights of the water system that rises in the Great Smoky Mountains and flows into the Gulf of Mexico. To the Cherokee, these waterways are known as Longperson and are a living relative.

The NAIWA Daughters, girls ages 10 to 17, brought the resolution forward after receiving training on the rights of nature, hosting community dinners, conducting surveys and meeting with council members. The Earth Law Center says it’s the first all-female-led rights-of-nature effort in the U.S.

The resolution grants the waterway five rights, including the right to flow freely and to be free from pollution.

The council later passed another resolution to raise money to remove the decommissioned Ela Dam in North Carolina, which has blocked the sicklefin redhorse, a freshwater fish, for more than a century.

“We hold the responsibility of stewarding the headwaters, so every living being downstream has water for life,” said NAIWA Daughters co-founder and Chairwoman Jasmine Smith.

— Liz Kimbrough, Mongabay

Sugarbush is a springtime tradition in many Native communities.

Students in the Minneapolis-based Wicoie Nandagikendan early childhood program trekked through the snow this past winter to learn about tapping maple trees and processing the syrup at Porky’s Sugarbush Camp.

The children and their parents walked past colorful buckets hanging on trees to catch the sap. They helped stir syrup already boiling in a large black kettle and helped make sugar and cakes. One student placed tobacco at a maple tree during a ceremony.

For parents like Christian Swor, the program provided his son and family an opportunity to connect with Indigenous culture and language. The early childhood program immerses children in the Ojibwe and Dakota languages.

Other cultural activities in the curriculum include how to cook dishes with rabbit or duck and how to process wild rice.

“We do hit all the state standards, but it’s like hitting all those early childhood indicators, progress and more,” said Ojibwe classroom teacher Liz Zoongwegiizhigook Zinsli.

— Chandra Colvin, Report for America corps member, MPR News

At 67, Kerry Butler still fits into his old Tulsa Indian Youth Center boxing jacket.

He joined the team for three years in the 1970s when he was 15. The center served a vital role for Native Americans after the federal government pushed them off their ancestral homelands and into major cities to assimilate them into white society.

Many Native youth had low self-esteem in those days, but a common gathering space and boxing helped change that, Butler said.

“When you got in front of a crowd of people, and they were cheering for you, and when you got into the ring, and people were clapping, ‘Awesome! Let’s go, Kerry! You can do it!’"

"It just rose up confidence inside that you never felt before,” Butler, who is Muscogee and Cherokee, added.

The youth center no longer exists. But a nonprofit called Tulsa Indian Community Center, Inc., recently formed with a vision to provide another gathering space for youth.

More than 60 tribes are represented in the Tulsa Public Schools district.

— Brittany Harlow, Crosswinds News

Hodokii Johnson leans in closely, as they tattoo three brown lines on each of Kristin Gentry’s fingers.

One is for the strength of Gentry’s mother. One is for Gentry. And one is for Gentry’s daughter.

When all the lines are darkened, the two say a prayer.

Johnson, a 24-year-old Muscogee Nation citizen and descendant of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, have been interested in body art since they were a teenager to cope with mental health struggles and now sees it with greater purpose.

They’ve worked with Inchunwa, a project dedicated to healing through traditional tattoos from the southeastern U.S., and recently attended a convention highlighting Indigenous tattoo practitioners in Oklahoma City.

Giving tattoos and ancestral markings is sacred work, they say, because of the permanence and deeper meaning.

“So much of the tattoo tradition that we had has since been weeded out through the efforts of colonization,” Johnson said. “Tattoos are seen as a taboo, unholy thing. When we talk about ancestral markings, it’s rather the opposite.”

— Sarah Liese, KOSU

Fawn Douglas puts a cup on a shelf at IndigenousAF, her store and gallery in Las Vegas, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)

Students use wooden paddles to process maple syrup at a skigamizigan (sugarbush) camp in Maple Plain, Minn., Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)