As we do every Tuesday, let's dive into your latest Sixers questions. A special thank you to everyone capable of coming up with something other than the most obvious question: "Will Quentin Grimes ever sign?"
Instead, it looks like we are focusing on No. 3 overall pick VJ Edgecombe today:
*From @JTDG13:*What do you think are the chances that VJ Edgecombe takes over a permanent starting role over Quentin Grimes and possibly Jared McCain? Considering injuries could be involved as well, do you think he’s going to be too good to keep off the court?
I think the odds of Edgecombe becoming a permanent starter are probably quite low, but that is more about the makeup of the Sixers' guard rotation with Grimes, McCain and Tyrese Maxey than it is about Edgecombe himself. Maxey will not just be slotted into a starting role, but also handle one of the heaviest workloads in the entire NBA in terms of minutes per game. If the Grimes situation ever does get resolved – and the expectation should be that the 25-year-old will be suiting up for the Sixers next season – he is an obvious option to start alongside Maxey. It is difficult to make a case that Grimes is not one of the five best players on a Sixers team that is fully healthy; he is probably going to be the second-best player they have available on a consistent basis.
The Sixers must try three-guard lineups at various points in the season, as it is head coach Nick Nurse's only path to getting his quartet of exciting young guards enough playing time. Edgecombe will probably be the most significant beneficiary of those experiments.
McCain's emergence last season would not have happened so quickly and emphatically without an abundance of injuries forcing him into a featured role. Perhaps Edgecombe is ticketed for a similar opportunity if the Sixers experience another miserable, injury-plagued campaign. But the Sixers rightfully do not want to set expectations too high for the 20-year-old whose on-ball skills still need a lot of fine-tuning.Last month in Las Vegas, Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey went out of his way to temper expectations for Edgecombe when asked about the team's crowded guard rotation:
"Nick does a good job, he’s generally going to put the best players out there, and those four guys we think will be likely four of our top players on the team. Coach Nurse is very creative, I would expect he would find ways to get all those guys pretty heavy minutes, assuming health and assuming VJ plays as well as we hope in his first year. 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. But I do think in our best version of our team, if we can get Quentin back, all four of those guys will be playing pretty heavy minutes and Coach Nurse will have to use creativity to figure out how to best utilize them."
There is no question, however, that Edgecombe should be a rotation regular for the entire season. Somewhere in the range of 18-24 minutes per game seems wise, depending on how far Nurse wants to push Maxey's workload and how often he is willing to use three-guard lineups. Of course, an injury to any of Maxey, McCain and Grimes would set up Edgecombe for a more significant role.
MORE: Jared McCain's case to start
From @Douanier_Medoc:What franchise record could be beaten this year? I have Tyrese Maxey who needs 189 threes to reach Allen Iverson but I cannot find others.
I could not find anything even close to as interesting as the record you identified. Maxey has a very real chance of becoming the Sixers' all-time leader in made threes this year, and if he stays healthy for most of the season will probably surpass Allen Iverson, the current owner of that franchise record.
Maxey needs 190 triples to pass Iverson and take ownership of that record. Last season he made 161 three-pointers despite only playing in 52 games. In 70 games the prior season, Maxey drained 212 triples. He reached that total in 2023-24 despite making fewer threes per game than he did in a down season last year. Maxey will pass Robert Covington and take over second place on the list pretty early on in the season, and if he stays healthy he should be able to supplant Iverson atop the list near the end of it.
In other news related to the Sixers' franchise record for three-pointers made, Joel Embiid needs 32 triples to pass Andre Iguodala and take over the sixth spot. An additional 13 threes after that would put him in the top five in franchise history, ahead of former teammate Tobias Harris.
Embiid only played in 19 games last year, making 23 three-pointers. He made 54 triples in 39 games the prior season. In six seasons before that, Embiid averaged 69.8 made triples in 60.5 games. If Embiid plays 40 games or so, leapfrogging Iguodala and Harris should be doable – especially if Embiid's knee issues continue to make him more reliant on stand-still shooting.
The full list, for anyone interested:
Player Three-pointers made
Allen Iverson 885
Robert Covington 724
Tyrese Maxey 696
Kyle Korver 661
Tobias Harris 575
Andre Iguodala 563
Joel Embiid 532
MORE: Everything you need to know about Sixers' 2025-26 schedule
*From @kellenpastore.bsky.social:*A lineup with Maxey and VJ is probably best served playing up tempo and trying to get into transition as often as possible. But a team with Joel Embiid has to play at a slower pace. What sort of tools does Nurse have available to balance these two competing play styles?
Anyone who has been reading my stories or following me on social media for a long time is familiar with my obsession with substitution patterns and lineup construction. I am often consumed by it because I believe it is among the most important aspects of a coaching staff's work from night to night. It is easy for anyone to make a ballpark estimate of how many minutes each player should log. Actually making all of those numbers work without using lineups without sensible blends of skills is a lot harder.
All of that work is more important coaching an Embiid team, which often must completely shift its identity not just from game to game depending on his availability, but from quarter to quarter when he goes from the center of the entire operation to sitting on the bench. If Embiid is available to begin the year, one of the more interesting subplots of the Sixers' opening stretch of play will be which players Nurse is pairing with Embiid the most outside of the starting lineup at the beginning and end of each half.
At first glance, many more of Edgecombe's minutes coming during Embiid's rest seems like the right idea, as during those minutes the Sixers could more clearly embrace the fast-paced brand of basketball Edgecombe figures to thrive in. But there are bigger fish to fry when constructing substitution patterns and lineups – most notably how the Sixers will consistently generate quality looks on offense for 48 minutes each night.
The conventional thinking would be to stagger Embiid and Maxey – "staggering" means ensuring one of the players is on the court at all times – to ensure the Sixers always have an All-Star-caliber offensive player out there. But another path could be pairing Embiid and Maxey together as much as possible, relying on their lethal two-man game and taking a lot of stress off Embiid's shoulders in the process.
That would at times limit Maxey's ability to use his blazing speed to thrive in transition. Even though Maxey's transition efficiency has never been stellar, the allure of that setup will always linger because the potential is obvious. It is not as if Nurse is going to have hockey-style line changes with five-man substitutions. There will never be a game in which Maxey shares the floor with Embiid for the entirety of his playing time. But generally speaking, pairing up Embiid and Maxey, surrounding them with off-ball players and stacking more gifted offensive creators in other lineups could give the Sixers their optimal blend of skills over the course of a 48-minute game.
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