*Welcome to our Sixers player preview series, where in the weeks leading up to Media Day we will preview the upcoming 2025-26 season for each and every member of the Sixers' standard roster.*For each player, we will pose two key questions about their season before making a prediction.
The pressure is on after a miserable 24-58 campaign last season. After entering a year with championship aspirations and spending multiple months having to tank for the sake of a protected first-round pick, the Sixers have lost any and all benefit of the doubt that their signature season is finally coming.
It is safe to say there is a whole lot of work to do on the Sixers' end to prove the doubters wrong. Do they have a roster good enough to make it happen?
Up next: VJ Edgecombe, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. The Sixers spent multiple months tanking to conclude the 2024-25 season in hopes of safeguarding their top-six protected first-round pick. Those efforts paid off in a major way, as the Sixers jumped into the top three and ended up landing on Edgecombe, immediately one of the most important members of the entire organization.
SIXERS PLAYER PREVIEWS
Jared McCain | Justin Edwards | VJ Edgecombe
Will Edgecombe be able to defend wings?
Asked by PhillyVoice last month about his confidence sliding up to the wing and playing in three-guard lineups to accommodate Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, Edgecombe did not sound or look like someone who had given it much thought.
Edgecombe has such overwhelming confidence that he almost scoffs at any implication that he will not be able to do something.
"I'm comfortable with whatever Coach Nurse wants me to do. I'll do it. It's as plain and simple as that," Edgecombe said. "Whatever he needs me to do, I'm going to go out there and do it. Just play my hardest, give my max potential, best I can. Three-guard lineups, two-guard lineups, it doesn't matter. I'm just happy to be on the floor. I'm looking forward to competing."
MORE: Edgecombe talks rookie season with PhillyVoice
Edgecombe has all of the intensity, tenacity, physicality and competitiveness to defend above his size. But at the 2025 NBA Draft Combine, Edgecombe measured in at 6-foot-4 and 192 pounds. It is not a wing frame in the NBA, especially on a team that could often have suspect rim protection -- and, when Edgecombe is at the three, two smaller guards in Maxey and McCain also trying to get by on the perimeter.
If Edgecombe does not prove capable of sliding upward on the positional scale for periods of games, his playing time will be capped pretty noticeably. Maxey is a safe bet to be among the league leaders in minutes. McCain figures to be ahead of Edgecombe within the pecking order at guard. And then there is Quentin Grimes, and the expectation should remain that the 25-year-old restricted free agent eventually returns as the clear favorite to start next to Maxey in the backcourt.All of that is to say there are not tons of available guard minutes for Edgecombe to grab, even if he plays well. His upward mobility in terms of playing time comes in the form of three-guard lineups. Some of those can come if the slightly larger Grimes is a regular option at small forward, but McCain could be an equal or greater beneficiary there.
How reliable of a spot-up three-point shooter will Edgecombe be?
Edgecombe is not entering the NBA as a flawless prospect, even if he is an elite one. Edgecombe has all of the tools and athleticism to quickly become a two-way force at this level. His short-term weaknesses come as a ball-handler and on-ball scorer. Edgecombe's path to superstardom will have to include outlier development in those areas, which is difficult but far from unheard of.
This is, in a perfect world, the ideal situation for Edgecombe to utilize his strengths and hide his weaknesses in the early stages of his NBA career. If the Sixers are near full health, it is not as if they will need Edgecombe to create tons of shots for himself or others. With those duties largely taken care of by players like Maxey, McCain, Grimes, Paul George and Joel Embiid, the Sixers would be able to craft a role for Edgecombe better suited to his strongest traits. Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey attempted to slightly temper expectations when he spoke with the media in Las Vegas in July:
"Again, expectations are super high on VJ -- as they should be, we’re very excited about him -- but I will say, it is super rare for a first-year player to come in and play on a team that has championship aspirations, so trying to temper them a little bit with VJ and give him a little space to maybe have some bumps in the road this year."
Edgecombe is going to be a lethal transition scorer in the NBA right away; his combination of stellar athleticism and strong instincts in those situations play perfectly together. He will work hard on the defensive end and should be a quality option against all guards. Given his limited offensive workload, in a perfect world Edgecombe can expend a whole lot of energy bothering opposing ball-handlers.
The swing skill in this entire conversation, though, is Edgecombe's three-point shooting. His mechanics look clean. His three-point volume (8.6 attempts per 100 possessions) and free throw percentage (78.2 percent) at Baylor are both strong marks that indicate future success. But he only made 34.0 percent of his long-range tries in college and has never been revered as a marksman.
To some degree, Edgecombe's performance as a spot-up three-point shooter will be determined by the variance that even occurs in an 82-game season. But just as Edgecombe looking like a knock-down shooter would greatly improve his chances of being a positive rotation player right away. If he struggles and defenses start operating under the assumption he can be left open in a pinch, it will be a lot harder for Edgecombe to be someone Sixers head coach Nick Nurse trusts in situations of remote importance.
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Prediction
Edgecombe's room for improvement as a ball-handler and on-ball scorer are evident in his rookie season, but he finds other avenues to be a useful rotation piece. He is a rotation player for the entirety of his rookie season.
It is likely not wise to anticipate Edgecombe having the sort of outlier growth playing on the ball that he would need to reach his absolute best possible outcomes in the NBA. But it would be especially imprudent to expect such a thing in his first professional season. The Sixers should not ask Edgecombe for much shot creation at all in his rookie campaign, and that does limit how much he can impact winning.
But it certainly does not prevent Edgecombe from impacting winning in some capacity, and if he is even slightly useful as a rotation piece as a rookie it is an excellent result. Edgecombe's combination of athletic gifts and mental aptitude put him in a good position to earn consistent minutes. The Sixers should try to fasten their pace off of misses when Edgecombe is in the game while encouraging him to torture opposing guards with tireless defensive pursuits.
Edgecombe's offensive floor will be totally acceptable without much ball-handling if he can pair his transition scoring with solid spot-up three-point shooting, and he is the rare rookie with a real chance of being a quality defender early on. It is not a bad recipe.
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