A tender moment amidst a mother’s tears shows Sixers got more than a game-changing athlete in VJ Edgecombe

You only had to listen to VJ Edgecombe talk to understand why he is so much more than the consolation prize at a Tricky Tray raffle.

Sure, you’ve seen the YouTube videos of his leaping above the rim as if the baseline was made of blubber. You’ve read the scouting reports that use words like “electric” and “explosive” and other combustible adjectives when describing him as the best athlete in the 2025 NBA draft. No doubt, you’ve heard about his high floor, as if he is a barrier island beach house on stilts.

Ignore all of those, for a moment.

Instead, go back to the video of the immediate aftermath of the Sixers’ decision to draft Edgecombe at No. 3 overall. Watch him standing on a stage at Barclays Center, leaning in close to a woman in white who is dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Watch him smile as a television reporter asks his mother a question, and watch him quickly recognize that she is in no position to answer.

“I’m going to talk,” Edgecombe says lovingly as his mother struggles to process the fact that she is standing here, in Brooklyn, at the center of the basketball universe, with two boys she raised in a part of the Bahamas where the tourists don’t go. “I’m going to talk right now. We came from nothing. We came from nothing, man. We’re truly blessed to be in this position. I know the emotions are high right now, so I’m just going to let her be right now. But we came from nothing. This is why the emotions are so high right now.”

» READ MORE: Sixers select VJ Edgecombe with the No. 3 pick in the 2025 NBA draft

A good apple does not a great basketball player make. But it sure doesn’t hurt when the basketball player in question combines such a tantalizing combination of present day reality and future potential. In Edgecombe, the Sixers drafted a guard who not only plays much bigger, stronger, and higher than the raw measurements suggests, but also exudes a level of maturity and willpower that can give an executive confidence that the college game tape is only the beginning.

“I’m excited for everyone to meet him,” Sixers president Daryl Morey said shortly after the Sixers selected Edgecombe at No. 3 overall. “It’s a little hard to describe. He’s very mature for his age; for being under 20 he carries himself like he’s already been in the league, which I don’t think is easy. Two, I think you saw it, the love in his family if you were watching the telecast, obviously a lot of people have that. But the admiration from his brother. ... I’m just excited to get to know him. He has a very good head on his shoulders, not just basketball IQ but life IQ.”

Credit the Sixers for valuing such a thing. With Rutgers star Ace Bailey on the board, the Sixers easily could have gotten caught up in the same dream as the rest of the draft industrial complex. They could have focused on the prototypical frame, and the projectable athleticism, and the 10% of the time when those things combined to make him look like a future NBA star.

Bailey made it easy on the Sixers, refusing to meet with them or any other NBA team in hopes of landing somewhere that could offer him unfettered shot volume. There were already questions about how a player who has drawn comparisons to Kevin Durant couldn’t lead his college team to a winning season — let alone a tournament run — while playing alongside another Top 5 pick in Dylan Harper. After watching how Bailey and his handlers dealt with their prospective employers during the run-up to the draft, the questions about Rutgers’ losing didn’t seem so mysterious.

Edgecombe offered a dramatic contrast. While he plays much bigger and stronger than his 6-foot-4 frame, and has a good wingspan and standing reach that should enable him to hold his own at multiple positions, he does not have Bailey’s outlier length, nor his shot-making upside. But he has plenty of potential to go with the instincts and two-way toughness he displayed at Baylor.

Comps are difficult with players this young. ESPN’s Jay Bilas mentioned Victor Oladipo and Dwyane Wade. Stylistically, I see his ceiling more like Jaylen Brown in Josh Hart’s frame. The important thing is that he has All-Star potential, and that, even if he does not reach his ceiling, his mentality will at least render him a winning player on a winning team.

“You don’t pick high very often so you want to pick guys who have All-Star capabilities, and he definitely has that,” Morey said.

Born in Bimini, The Bahamas, Edgecombe relocated to Florida as a high school freshman and eventually finished out his scholastic career as a boarding student at Long Island Lutheran in New York. He played for the Bahamas national team in the 2024 Olympic qualifying tournament, averaging 16.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game as a 19-year-old rising college freshman on a team that included NBA players DeAndre Ayton, Buddy Hield and Eric Gordon.

In his only season at Baylor, Edgecombe established himself as one of the most dynamic athletes in the NCAA, displaying a rare combination of strength, leaping ability, and defensive instincts while also shooting 36% from three-point range and 50% from two-point range over his last 29 games.

» READ MORE: Five things to know about VJ Edgecombe, from playing barefoot in the Bahamas to a walking highlight reel

Edgecombe is a modern-day player. Strong. Athletic. Indefatigable. Good shooting mechanics. His defensive ability is matched only by his desire to actually do it. In between the highlight-reel dunks are volumes of high-energy plays that win possessions. He is exactly the kind of player the Sixers should have been hoping would be on the board if they weren’t going to get Cooper Flagg at No. 1 or Dylan Harper at No. 2.

They have a long way to go. Joel Embiid is in the midst of his annual summer ritual, working his way back into fighting shape. Morey said on Wednesday that the big man’s recovery from knee surgery has gone according to plan and that training camp was a realistic target. Still, he said it with a lack of definitiveness that, at this point, is the only honest tone an executive can sound when it comes to Embiid’s availability. We’ll see.

The incredible thing for the Sixers is that, in Edgecombe, they somehow managed to pull a game-changing rabbit out of their tattered top hat of a season. Six months ago, we assumed they would have been indefinitely sunk in a world without Embiid. Now, with Edgecombe joining Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, you can see an afterlife that might be more enjoyable than now.

“That was a rough year, a rough year for the fans primarily, a rough year for Coach Nurse, ownership, players,” Morey said. “If we had left that without a guy who could be a potential All-Star for us, that would be tough. So I would say I feel very fortunate in many ways.”