all the consternation over the Big 3<\/a> \u2014 Embiid slowing things down, Maxey deferring, George\u2019s inconsistencies, blah blah blah \u2014 it was Edgecombe who delivered. And that\u2019s not a fluke or new occurrence. He\u2019s been doing it all season, regardless of who\u2019s on the court.<\/p>\nComing into his first NBA season, Edgecombe had never made a game-winner at any level, a fact he revealed after putting back a Maxey miss in the waning seconds of a win over the Golden State Warriors back on Dec. 4. Now, just 27 games into his professional career, he has two game-winners.<\/p>\n
But his clutch triple Tuesday wasn\u2019t only unsurprising, it\u2019s become a pattern of sorts. There have been several games this season where Edgecombe is fairly quiet early, letting the game come to him while guys like Maxey and Embiid do their thing, and making non-scoring winning plays. The biggest proof is in Edgecombe\u2019s clutch stats this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cClutch\u201d time is defined as the last five minutes of a game with the score being within five. According to NBA.com, Edgecombe has been in clutch situations in 21 games and 84.4 minutes this season. He\u2019s gone 17-of-28 (60.7%) from the field and 8-of-13 (61.5%) from three. He\u2019s also a +48 \u2026 which seems insane. The Sixers are 48 points better than their opponents in clutch situations when Edgecombe is on the floor. That\u2019s preposterous!<\/p>\n
Of course, those numbers are in no way sustainable and will come down over the course of the year, but his clutch factor feels far from flukey \u2014 and the numbers and eye test back it up.<\/p>\n
This could be an inflection point of the season. The Sixers had lost three straight. Their record was 16-14 and they\u2019d slipped to seventh in the East. It\u2019s probably extreme to say their season was on the brink ahead of the New Year, but a fourth straight loss \u2014 with two more tough road games against the Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks looming \u2014 and creeping closer to .500 with more lingering questions about the team\u2019s Big 3 could\u2019ve spent things spiraling.<\/p>\n
Instead, Edgecombe hits that shot, the Sixers win, are 17-14 and have now moved up to fifth in the East \u2014 tied in the loss column with the fourth-seeded Toronto Raptors and two games back in the loss column of the third-seeded Boston Celtics. Before the season started, most Sixers fans would\u2019ve gladly signed up for this spot in the standings 31 games in.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s health, ineffectiveness or both, the Sixers aren\u2019t likely to get the proper return on investment with Embiid and George\u2019s contracts. It\u2019s another thing that makes Edgecombe\u2019s production so uniquely valuable to the Sixers. He\u2019s doing all of this on a rookie deal. So, while it can certainly be frustrating to see max players not play to that level, the value Edgecombe is providing is immense.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not even slightly hyperbolic to say Edgecombe\u2019s presence changes the entire trajectory of the franchise. He was a high pick, but he\u2019s gleeful in doing the dirty work and little things to help the current team win. He\u2019s the ideal guard to play next to Maxey for the next decade. He\u2019s a deodorant from the stench of the organizational missteps during the Embiid era.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s a winner at 20 years old, an age where he should be making questionable choices and be filled with existential dread about his future.<\/p>\n
This is not normal. This is special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine being 20 years old. For some of us, it was a very long time ago. Maybe you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,107314,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-384763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sixers-analysis","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}