Nothing vaults you to the top of the Rookie of the Year conversation quite like dropping 34 on your new arch-rival in a winning effort. VJ Edgecombe’s NBA debut set a near impossible bar to reach on a nightly basis.
He has since, understandably, cooled down a bit since dropping 75 points across his first three games in the league. Edgecombe is currently playing 35.6 minutes a night. In that time, he’s averaging 14.7 points on 40.9% field goal shooting, along with 5.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.4 steals.
Something that’s caught the praise of teammates, and certainly his head coach, is how he has been able to contribute late in games, even on nights where he is struggling individually.
There was no greater example in his early career than his game-winning putback. Edgecombe was sitting on an eight-point night, scoreless in the second half, having committed four turnovers that helped the Golden State Warriors come all the way back from down 24 to have a late one-point lead.
Edgecombe made three incredible plays, all of which were equally responsible for the Sixers avoiding their most embarrassing loss of the season. First he poked free an inbounds pass, one that was initially called a foul. After the Sixers successfully overturned that call with a challenge, Edgecombe left no doubt the second time by stealing Golden State’s ensuing inbounds play. He then caught Tyrese Maxey’s airball of a game-winning attempt, not only laying it in to take the lead, but still having the wherewithal to get back and defend the Warriors’ final shot attempt.
Funny enough, Edgecombe’s only focus on this play was on getting out of the way so that Maxey would have the space to cook.
“Just give Tyrese the ball and get out of the way. I know he’s gonna make a play,” he said. “I trust him with the game on the line.”
It’s a good thing for the Sixers that trust goes both ways, since he ended up having to pick his teammate up there. Edgecombe did decisively think Maxey was fouled on that play though.
Somehow, even after he’s come down to earth, Edgecombe has been able to save his best for when the moment matters most. The 3.9 points he averages in the fourth are his second-highest scoring quarter. The 45% he shoots from both three and the field in the fourth quarter are both his highest marks.
“He’s had some of these games where he just hasn’t done much and then down the stretch he’ll hit a big three, get a big rebound, whatever,” Nick Nurse said after the win.
That reasoning was why he subbed Edgecombe back in the game with two minutes to go with the Sixers struggling to do anything. Maxey would go on to call that a “great sub.”
It takes a certain level of buy-in and even more poise to continue to try to make team-first plays when other things aren’t going right. That poise is especially rare in 20-year-old rookies, still less than 20 games into their career.
“He does things that don’t show up in the box score,” Maxey said, “like yeah the steal does, but he goes out there, he plays hard, he’ll get an extra rebound, he’ll tip the ball to somebody, or you know he’ll get the deflection. And we appreciate him because he does those things and we know who he is as a person and a basketball player too.”
Like his head coach, Maxey is not surprised to see these types of clutch time contributions for a rookie.
“It’s what he does — he has a knack for those things,” he said.
Edgecombe’s win-first mentality is part of what attracted the Sixers to him so much in the draft process. It’s all he’s seemed to care about since showing up in the league.
”Whatever it takes for me to do it, I’ll do it” Edgecombe said after making the first game-winner of his life. “I don’t care about nothing else. If they need me to make a shot, if they need me to grab a rebound, I’ll grab a rebound, get a steal, get a stop, I’ll do it. Because winning feels great and losing don’t.”
While he isn’t scoring at the absurd pace he started his career with, the Sixers’ 20-year old-rookie is helping them win games as much as anyone.
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