History. 3 of 5 such teams finished first.
Hunch. The champions, the New York Knicks, play in the same conference, and Philadelphia's newest star, LeBron James, is 41 (The Independent, 9 Oct).
Resolves on the final Eastern Conference table on nba.com after the last regular-season games on 11 April 2027: YES if Philadelphia are first after the NBA's tie-break rules, NO otherwise. ESPN and The Guardian are the backup.
We looked for cases where an NBA team that already had two stars added at least one more in a single summer. A star here is a player the press at the time called an All-Star, a most valuable player or part of the team's leading pair or trio. We found five such teams from 2016 to 2024, and checked where each finished in its conference.