It's Impossible Not To Be A Huge VJ Edgecombe Guy After Listening To This Interview About How Much His Mom Worked To Get Him Here
David L. Nemec. Getty Images.The Sixers had a tough choice to make last night. On one hand, you have a chance to draft Ace Bailey. Incredibly talented, but obviously has some major character concerns. Clearly only cares about himself, and isn't afraid to become a massive headache for an organization to get what he wants.
On the other hand, you have VJ Edgecombe. Freakishly athletic, but maybe doesn't have the skill that jumps out at you as a guy who is going to come in and immediately make your team a contender. I'm not a college basketball guy but everyone is saying his ceiling is certainly lower than Ace Bailey's as far far as skill goes. But when it comes to character, his floor is higher than Ace Bailey's ceiling could ever be.
Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say the Sixers made the right pick on this one. They've done the experiment before where you prioritize skill over character. It led to one of the faces of the franchise quitting on the team and refusing to play.
But with VJ Edgecombe, they have a guy who you'll never have to worry about where their heart and mind is at. You know he's going to give the Sixers everything he has all the time because that's the way he was brought up. Philly has fallen in love with Tyrese Maxey for the exact same reason over the last few years, and now it looks like we added a 6'5" version of Maxey to the city.
He doesn't care about being a star. He's not trying to force his way to any specific team. He's grateful and thankful to get drafted anywhere because he knows how much his mom had to work and sacrifice in order to get him to this position. Long nights, living off a generator, coming over to America from the Bahamas. He knows he wouldn't be in a position to be a top 3 pick in the draft if it wasn't for the hard work she put in over the last 19 years, and now he's ready to return the favor by working as hard as he can on the court to make sure he lives up to the standard he set.
Advertisement
He sounds like an impossible guy to not root for heavily. And while I'm not going to pretend to know anything about his game, he seems wildly entertaining just from the few clips I've seen.
Also, I'd like to formally submit a claim to refer to VJ Edgecombe as "The Edger" from now on. We can work with that.