{"id":607121,"date":"2026-02-16T23:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607121\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T23:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T23:35:15","slug":"vj-edgecombe-drops-blunt-ja-morant-toughest-player-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/607121\/","title":{"rendered":"VJ Edgecombe drops blunt Ja Morant toughest player claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

To say the Philadelphia 76ers have expected a lot out of VJ Edgecombe<\/a> as a rookie would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

Joining the red, white, and blue as a 20-year-old rookie out of Baylor, Edgecombe has started all 50 games<\/a> he’s appeared in alongside Tyrese Maxey and company in 2025-26, being tasked with spacing the floor, driving to the basket, and playing good defense on the other side of the court.<\/p>\n

Discussing his early run through the NBA midway through his rookie season on Club 520 Podcast, Edgecombe broke down one particularly tough stretch of games where he was tasked with guarding some of the best players in the NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBro, it was a stretch. I went to guard Luka, too, Curry sat out. I ain\u2019t going to lie, I was low-key happy,\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cEven though you want to compete, I was like, that ain\u2019t too bad. I had to guard Luka, I had to guard Shai, D-Book, Brunson, I had to guard all of them, bro. So that was like my welcome to the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, who was the toughest player Edgecombe guarded over his \u201cWelcome to the NBA\u201d gauntlet? That would be Ja Morant<\/a>, who dropped 40 on the 76ers despite Edgecombe’s best efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cToughest? I ain\u2019t going to lie to you, Ja Morant bro,\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cI ain\u2019t going to lie, he had 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

Widely celebrated as one of the better athletes in the 2025 NBA Draft class, Edgecombe made it clear that he wanted to be a force on both ends of the court, with defense just as important to his personal game as his offensive production. Despite often being the youngest player on the court every time Nick Nurse checks him into a game, Edgecombe’s desire to play both ways has largely come to pass, with \u201cThe Generator<\/a>\u201d only getting better as his mettle gets tested night in and night out.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To say the Philadelphia 76ers have expected a lot out of VJ Edgecombe as a rookie would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,178,6,678,207,3817,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-607121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-ja-morant","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers","15":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}