CAMDEN, N.J. – Without much prompting, Tyrese Maxey on Monday’s Media Day called VJ Edgecombe, “if not our most important player, he’s going to be extremely important for us.”

Ordinarily, that would be a lot to saddle a second-year pro with, particularly on a 76ers team with two NBA MVPs and two NBA Finals MVPs. But Edgecombe is not an ordinary player, certainly not a player with an ordinary mentality. And Maxey’s declaration wasn’t a coronation of the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 draft but a reflection of his reality.

Off a tremendous rookie season with room to grow, Edgecombe’s youth and versatility around so many veteran pillars will be essential for the Sixers this year. While Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown and LeBron James fit themselves into a lineup and figure to sacrifice something in the way of individual production, Edgecombe’s uncertain ceiling opens up the possibilities of it all.

Part of the reason that Maxey can make such a declaration is that he knows how Edgecombe will take it: Not as pressure to be something other than who he is but as an invitation to keep growing and doing the unique things he does.

“That’s not pressure,” Edgecombe said Tuesday after practice in Camden. “Me and Reese have that relationship where we talk a lot, so he’s kind of been telling me that, and I’ve just been working, making sure that I’m on point every given night. But look at the team I have around me. There’s no pressure, I promise. There’s no pressure on me at all.”

Edgecombe was outstanding as a rookie last year, averaging 16 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 35 minutes per game. He upped his usage to 37 minutes per game in the postseason.

He led the NBA in minutes played among rookies and was 11th among all players. At nearly 3,000 minutes played between the regular and postseason, he had one of the highest workloads for a rookie in the last decade.

His reputation proceeds him. On a preseason podcast with Steve Nash, James sung Edgecombe’s praises. With mentorship from Brown to replace what Paul George supplied last year, James believes Edgecombe is an NBA All-Defensive Team candidate. He’s impressed other new teammates quickly.

“VJ is super talented,” Anfernee Simons said. “Obviously, his athleticism speaks for itself. His ability to get downhill speaks for itself. We’re going to continue to push him. Obviously, he’s going to be in a lot of opportunities to go out there and might have to guard the best player. Just push him that way to continue to be special.”

Roles are yet to be resolved, but the broad strokes are obvious. Brown, Embiid, Maxey and James are super-users of the ball. When Edgecombe is on the court with that quartet, he won’t have the ball in his hands at all, freeing him to create off-ball as a slasher or spot-up shooter. But he will be a playmaker in other lineups – say a second unit that includes a backup big, Dean Wade, Simons and one of the starters.

At this point in his career, James isn’t the lockdown defender he once was. Whatever their other shortcomings, the Sixers lost excellent defenders in George and Kelly Oubre. Edgecombe and Brown will be primarily responsible for picking up the point of attack from other team’s elite guards/wings.

And Edgecombe is young on a team that has gotten notably older. There will be nights where James and Embiid will have to be load-managed and Edgecombe won’t be a secondary option.

Edgecombe spent the offseason preparing physically for that possibility, visibly bulking up without losing quickness. He’s worked on his shooting, which at 35.4 percent from 3-point range last year was probably a little ahead of projections after 34.0 percent in his only season at Baylor.

“I got faster and stronger, too,” he said. “I was able to put on more weight and still move the same. And obviously, as a defender, you’ve got to be strong, especially when you’re going against guys that are in the NBA. I think I got faster and stronger, and that’s what’s helping me too.”

Last year, the message from Maxey and other veterans was for Edgecombe to keep shooting. He had a record-setting debut with 34 points in Boston on opening night, but it would take until a March game against Utah to reach 30 points again. His shooting touch could go in and out, to be expected for a rookie. His confidence to seize the moment stayed fairly constant.

The message this year from Maxey et al. is the need for Edgecombe to be the same guy every night, in terms of mentality and approach, even if the roles and responsibilities shift.

“We’re going to need the youth,” Maxey said. “We’re going to need the energy every single day. He’s going to have to be the same person every single night, and some nights he’s going to have to be, you know, 10 points, eight rebounds, four steals. Some nights he’s going to need to be able to get 20. Some nights, don’t know what we’re going to need him to do. But he has to be that steady, that rock every single night. And I think he’s up for it. …

“I’m proud of him, extremely proud of him because he’s grown as a player. Over the summer I’ve watched him, and he’s grown as a person maturity-wise. And I think he’s way more mature than I think I was at 20 or 21, whatever he is, and he’s going to be ready for it.”

Maxey puts that on Edgecombe because he knows he can handle it. And Edgecombe knows he can handle it not because of anything he has to do in training camp or any new flash he’s added but just by virtue of being who he has been all along.

“Every night I’m just going to be myself,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. Once I’m going out there, being myself, playing with the joy, I think we’ll be good.”