Philadelphia 76ers rookie guard VJ Edgecombe, the No. 3 pick in this year’s draft out of Baylor, will face an intriguing rotational situation in the backcourt this season.
The 20-year-old will be competing for minutes, on a win-now squad, with All-Star point guard Tyrese Maxey, intriguing second-year guard Jared McCain, plus veterans Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon.
With All-Stars Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid ailing throughout most of the 2024-25 season, Philadelphia tumbled from contention into the lottery, finishing with a miserable 24-48 record. The prize for their efforts? The draft rights to Edgecombe.
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During an appearance on his new All-Star colleague Paul George’s show “Podcast P,” Edgecombe revealed that another 35-year-old nine-time All-Star has already been guiding him for years.
Now-Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard has been advising Edgecombe since at least his one-and-done freshman season with the Bears in 2024-25.
“Bad first game. He was like, ‘Bro, you know what you can do. You can’t let one game carry on for the next couple games because in college you only get so much.’ I just took that advice and ran with it. Forgot about the first game. Ever since me and him have been locked in. That’s my dog.”
Later in their conversation, Edgecombe revealed that he has amended his perception of Lillard’s closeout 2019 playoff buzzer beater against George’s Oklahoma City Thunder may have been epic, but he now considers it an unnecessarily risky take.
“I know how elite he is, his range. Obviously, he could shoot that sh*t effortlessly,” Edgecombe remarked. “I wasn’t coming off or trying to be a hater on that, specifically. It was just it was a bad shot in terms of like, I felt, clock’s running down, and I’m at his mercy. You know what I mean?”
“Like he got the last shot, six, seven seconds left on the clock. Try to get something closer or work like, he could have drove me back and took a three-pointer closer in,” Edgecombe said. “So that was the only thing that I was like, ‘It was a bad shot.’ Because of time and possession.”
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