CAMDEN, N.J. — Paul George’s career has shown him the sweep of NBA stardom. He’s been the guy, full stop, in Indiana, and seen the limitations of going it alone. He’s been the guy to help the guy in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook. And he’s been part of a somewhat redundant ensemble with the Clippers. So when George decided this summer that the best place to repair the Larry O’Brien Trophy-sized hole in his resume was Philadelphia, it came after measured consideration of the types of players and people that already called the 76ers home and what he could bring. “I think all three of us can flow and make the game easy for all of us,” George said Monday at 76ers media day. “I love sharing the ball, and I love being aggressive to score, so I kind of think all three of us look at the game the same way.” On paper, George gives the 76ers arguably their most formidable Big 3 in the Joel Embiid area. In assessing their offseason needs, knowing they could shed almost all of last year’s roster, the 76ers built around an elite center in Embiid and a blossoming elite point guard in Tyrese Maxey. Who better to fill the literal and figurative space between the one and the five than the NBA’s prototypical three, the nine-time All-Star and four-time All-Defensive Team selection who can shoot, score and stop opponents? Add in the fact that George knows what it’s like to coexist with other stars, and many of the hypotheticals fall away. How exactly the three will mesh requires explication on the court. But it starts with mutual respect of one another’s skills. With Embiid clamoring for help for years and Maxey evolving into a ball-dominant player, George fills practical needs with his off-ball play and defense. He does so with a sensibility off the floor that seems perfect. As a rookie in Indiana, George said, “I wanted everything to fall on my shoulders. I wanted that pressure. I wanted to be compared to the guys that took over for their teams.” But now, on a team where he doesn’t need to do everything every night, where success is more than mere survival, the needs have changed. “I’ve kind of never had an ego, outside of my first couple years, thinking that I had to be the man, from a selfish standpoint to win,” he said. “I don’t have an ego when it comes to this basketball game. I know what I can do and what I’m capable of, and I can play in any system, any style, play off any player, play with any player. And it’s kind of one thing that I pride myself on.” Ego is a tricky thing in the NBA, and the 76ers have felt the devastation it can wrought. See Harden, James; Butler, Jimmy; or the effects of Butler on Simmons, Ben. But Embiid will subordinate his ego for a chance to win a championship, reiterating Monday that his goal for this year is “to empower” the players around him rather than wearing his body down in the spotlight so as to be healthy for the postseason. He and Maxey have formed a big brother-little brother duo that harnesses their combined competitive fires. Into that comes George, mild-mannered off the court and ferocious on it. At 34, he’s the same age Harden was last fall, when it was hoped a desire for a championship would tamp down said legendary ego. George, though, has a history of actually doing that, calling his experience with the Clippers alongside Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard, both fellow superstars, “egoless in terms of team basketball and accepting other stars on the team.” And he chose to be in Philadelphia, unlike Harden, who merely chose not to be in Brooklyn. All of that, George vetted before putting pen to paper on what could be the final stop in a 14-year career that should end in Springfield. “The conversations with Joel coming here, conversations with Tyrese, we all want each other to be themselves,” George said. “That’s the only way this thing’s going to work. I’ve got to be Paul George, Joel’s got to be Joel Embiid, Tyrese has got to be Tyrese Maxey, for this thing to work and for us to learn and figure out how to play amongst one another.” “Paul’s great,” Maxey said. “He’s somebody who can do a lot of different things. You kind of just plug and play him, too. That’s the crazy part about him. He’s been an all-star, all-NBA player for almost a decade. He knows how to play. He knows how to play a role if he has. He knows how to bail you out if he has to. And at the end of the day, he can also play defense and guard multiple positions. So that’s going to really help us a lot as well.” On a day where Embiid and Maxey both demurred on questions of expectations, George ran headlong toward them. Though he needn’t have, since his free-agency decision already said as much. George won an Olympic gold medal with Kyle Lowry in 2016. He watched Reggie Jackson win an NBA title in 2023. He knows what Nick Nurse can do as a coach. So yeah, he had no compunction about touting his lofty team goals. “I would be hopeful that we’re one of the best teams in the NBA, top three in the East, for sure,” George said. “I think we should be able to compete for a championship. … It’s a well-balanced group, so I do think we have high expectations of being one of the best teams and the last team standing.”