CAMDEN, N.J. \u2013 Without much prompting, Tyrese Maxey on Monday\u2019s Media Day called VJ Edgecombe, \u201cif not our most important player, he\u2019s going to be extremely important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s declaration wasn\u2019t a coronation of the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 draft but a reflection of his reality.<\/p>\n
Off a tremendous rookie season with room to grow, Edgecombe\u2019s 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\u2019s uncertain ceiling opens up the possibilities of it all.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not pressure,\u201d Edgecombe said Tuesday after practice in Camden. \u201cMe and Reese have that relationship where we talk a lot, so he\u2019s kind of been telling me that, and I\u2019ve just been working, making sure that I\u2019m on point every given night. But look at the team I have around me. There\u2019s no pressure, I promise. There\u2019s no pressure on me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
His reputation proceeds him. On a preseason podcast with Steve Nash, James sung Edgecombe\u2019s praises. With mentorship from Brown to replace what Paul George supplied last year, James believes Edgecombe is an NBA All-Defensive Team candidate. He\u2019s impressed other new teammates quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cVJ is super talented,\u201d Anfernee Simons said. \u201cObviously, his athleticism speaks for itself. His ability to get downhill speaks for itself. We\u2019re going to continue to push him. Obviously, he\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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 \u2013 say a second unit that includes a backup big, Dean Wade, Simons and one of the starters.<\/p>\n
At this point in his career, James isn\u2019t 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\u2019s elite guards\/wings.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t be a secondary option.<\/p>\n
Edgecombe spent the offseason preparing physically for that possibility, visibly bulking up without losing quickness. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got faster and stronger, too,\u201d he said. \u201cI was able to put on more weight and still move the same. And obviously, as a defender, you\u2019ve got to be strong, especially when you\u2019re going against guys that are in the NBA. I think I got faster and stronger, and that\u2019s what\u2019s helping me too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to need the youth,\u201d Maxey said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to need the energy every single day. He\u2019s going to have to be the same person every single night, and some nights he\u2019s going to have to be, you know, 10 points, eight rebounds, four steals. Some nights he\u2019s going to need to be able to get 20. Some nights, don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to need him to do. But he has to be that steady, that rock every single night. And I think he\u2019s up for it. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of him, extremely proud of him because he\u2019s grown as a player. Over the summer I\u2019ve watched him, and he\u2019s grown as a person maturity-wise. And I think he\u2019s way more mature than I think I was at 20 or 21, whatever he is, and he\u2019s going to be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s added but just by virtue of being who he has been all along.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery night I\u2019m just going to be myself,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing. Once I\u2019m going out there, being myself, playing with the joy, I think we\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAMDEN, N.J. \u2013 Without much prompting, Tyrese Maxey on Monday\u2019s Media Day called VJ Edgecombe, \u201cif not our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,2113,99,31300],"class_list":["post-866339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}