{"id":690104,"date":"2026-03-31T15:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/690104\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:50:17","slug":"sixers-vj-edgecombe-discusses-his-homecoming-game-in-loss-to-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/690104\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixers’ VJ Edgecombe discusses his homecoming game in loss to Heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 31, 2026, 11:31 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

MIAMI — Philadelphia 76ers rookie VJ Edgecombe felt right at home on Monday night at the Kaseya Center. While the arena name isn’t the same as when he was a kid–when it was called American Airlines Arena–it still felt like something of a homecoming for the native of The Bahamas.<\/p>\n

The Sixers fell to the Miami Heat 119-109<\/a> in a critical loss in the playoff race, but it felt like the game was in Philadelphia with the amount of fans in the arena rooting for Edgecombe and the Sixers. With The Bahamas being only a quick flight away from Miami, plenty of Bahamians showed up and were loud in their support of Edgecombe.<\/p>\n

“Lots of love and I love that for him, and that was amazing to see,” Joel Embiid said of Edgecombe. “How his people just showed up for him, that was great. I told him I was like \u2018Man, that’s love. You should appreciate that and enjoy it.\u2019”<\/p>\n

When Edgecombe was introduced as a starter, the large contingent of Bahamians waved the country’s flag and gave him a loud ovation as well. It was an overall fantastic experience for the rookie as he definitely felt the love from the crowd in Miami.<\/p>\n

“It felt like a home game,” Edgecombe smiled. “I know Bahamians come out and show a lot of love. So, they’ve been supporting me the whole time, and I loved it.”<\/p>\n

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Before speaking with the media after the game, Edgecombe made a point to go back out to the lower bowl and give his attention to every single supporter who was there for him. He made sure that he took pictures, signed autographs, and met with every one of his fellow countrymen.<\/p>\n

“Every single one,” Edgecombe added. “Every single one because, obviously–I get to see people I don’t even know, but just get to interact with them. Take a picture. I hope I take a picture with as much people as I can, but it was good, though. I say it’s just love. It’s a lot of love.”<\/p>\n

Edgecombe was once that kid looking for an autograph or a picture with a celebrity in that instance. Every kid just wants to be acknowledged by great players and people and Edgecombe knows that.<\/p>\n

“I know how it is to feel ignored from someone that’s famous or something,” Edgecombe finished. “So, I tried to interact with as much people as I could. Just trying to show love. I just love showing. Especially, because they’re my own people too. Ain’t like they random. I mean, obviously, I don’t know them personally, but we all from the same background, same culture and everything like that, so I always want to show love to them.”<\/p>\n

It was obvious that the Sixers felt that presence for Edgecombe throughout the night. Veteran Paul George felt it from the beginning as soon as they walked into the arena.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s got to be great for him being kind of close to his homeland,” smiled George. “I know it was a lot of Bahamian pride in here tonight, and it’s great for a young guy like that to come into\u2014they don’t really know playoff basketball. To have that atmosphere, that environment, to have some little home cooking here as well. It was good for him to kind of settle in. I thought officiating kind of took him out of his game a little bit. It kind of got to him a little bit, but I thought it was nice. I definitely felt the Bahamian presence.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 31, 2026, 11:31 a.m. ET MIAMI — Philadelphia 76ers rookie VJ Edgecombe felt right at home on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,72400,7,6,678,207,3817,72473,72474,72404,72405,72406,72479,72403],"class_list":{"0":"post-690104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-accessfree","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers","15":"tag-sstssportsnbasixers","16":"tag-sstsnsixers","17":"tag-tagbasketball","18":"tag-tagoverall-positive","19":"tag-tagsports-news","20":"tag-tagvj-edgecombe","21":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116324586194803898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690104","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=690104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}