Despite injuries still bugging them at will, the Philadelphia 76ers still have a winning record to start their season, and one of the biggest reasons why is the fact that rookie VJ Edgecombe has already cemented himself early as a franchise cornerstone, racing out as one of the clear frontrunners to win Rookie of the Year.
However, since his piping hot start to the season, Edgecombe has mightily struggled on offense. His shooting has been way off for the last couple of weeks, although he did break out his slump against the Pistons. But even then, his field goal percentage was nothing worth writing home about.
Edgecombe’s recent struggles should nowhere near be considered a cause for panic, especially since there are valid reasons — such as Nick Nurse overplaying him and possibly burning him out — which can be pointed to for his slump. Still, it only drives home the point that Edgecombe’s fiery start should not be the standard he is to be constantly subjected to.
Draft guru gives VJ Edgecombe a couple of pointers to focus on
Well-known draft expert Sam Vecenie recently dished out his assessment of Edgecombe’s start to the season, pointing out that despite the Baylor standout’s impressive campaign thus far, he needs to focus on two critical areas as an offensive stud — ball handling and pull-up shooting.
Edgecombe is tallying 8.3 drives per game, which is already second on the 76ers roster. He has already adopted it as his pet play, resorting to drives to generate shots for himself and open up passing lanes to find open shooters and cutters. Among rookies, only Dylan Harper and Jeremiah Fears rack up more assists on drives than him.
Clearly, Edgecombe’s aggression and confidence are no-issues. However, he has to clean up his ball handling. His ball security has been very good, but while he rearely coughs the ball up, he sometimes gets limited by his tendency to get caught in traffic. There is also the proverbial rookie habit of stopping one’s dribble more often than desired.
Pull-up jump shots, often a marker of how great and advanced a scorer is, has also been Edgecombe’s waterloo. He is canning just 28.9 percent of his pull-up jumpers, making that area a needed point of emphasis for him moving forward in order to best maximize his already existent ability to get separation and catch defenders off guard.
Fortunately, Edgecombe is already good enough that we are nitpicking on these technical matters despite him still being a rookie. Still, these couple of areas will be huge for him moving forward, especially with the 76ers appearing to be ready to hand him the keys fully sooner than later.