PHILADELPHIA \u2014 VJ Edgecombe on Sunday night looked back on his season and couldn\u2019t find the rookie wall.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d heard rumors about it. Maybe even thought he might glimpse it at some point. But in the course of 75 games and a league-high 2,623 minutes for this rookie class, he didn\u2019t seem to see it, much less hit it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t understand what this rookie wall is,\u201d Edgecombe said after a Game-82 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. \u201cI\u2019ll be so honest with you. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s, I\u2019m not scoring the same or I\u2019ve had games where I score single digits. Tonight I had single digits. But I\u2019m not too sure what the rookie wall is, but I don\u2019t think I hit it. I just try to stay the same and continue getting better every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a tremendously deep rookie class, Edgecombe finished first in minutes, first in minutes per game (35.0), third in points per game (16.0), fifth in rebounds (5.6), third in assists (4.2) and first in steals (1.4) among rookies who played at least 40 NBA games this year. It\u2019s a great return for the third overall pick, whatever happens in Wednesday night\u2019s NBA Play-In Tournament opener against Orlando.<\/p>\n
Edgecombe shot 35.4 percent from 3-point range \u2014 up from 34.0 percent in his one year at Baylor \u2014 with an effective FG percent of 51.0. He was available for 75 games on a team where that might be the most valuable skill of all.<\/p>\n
He scored 34 points in his first NBA game and, granted, didn\u2019t match that until March. But he was a constant, reliable presence for the 76ers. His 149 made 3-pointers are the most for a Sixers rookie since a guy named Allen Iverson made 155, albeit in a much different NBA.<\/p>\n
His monthly averages show a lack of rookie wall. He averaged 12.3 points per game in November, shooting 36.2 percent from the field in perhaps a slight slump. But he rose to 17.1 in December when the 76ers got a more consistent rotation. He dipped again in January to 13.9.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the March run, when the 76ers were without Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, Kelly Oubre and Joel Embiid for stretches \u2014 and at times, simultaneously \u2014 Edgecombe rose his level to an average of 18.9 points, 4.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds, garnering NBA Rookie of the Month honors.<\/p>\n
If there was a rookie wall, he bounded it with ease.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing for me, from the moment he stepped on the floor when guys were out, was just his confidence level,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said Wednesday. \u201cHe\u2019s not afraid of the moment, not afraid to take a big shot. His aggression level offensively, he\u2019s not afraid out there on the court. And I think that says a lot about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Not unlike the 76ers, the Magic have battled injuries to key plyers like Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner this season.<\/p>\n
Wagner was limited to 34 games this season. He missed all of March and returned for six of the last seven games of the Magic season, averaging 21.3 minutes, 17.2 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 25 percent from 3-point range. He averaged 24.2 points per game last year and has shot 34.5 percent from 3-point range this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s moving in that direction for sure,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cYou can see it in his work. You can see it in his focus. I think there\u2019s a lot of key pieces within the game that you\u2019ll see glimpses of it. And I think he\u2019s moving in that direction for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mosley said that Wagner would be on a minutes restriction but that it\u2019s creeping up. Wagner played 19:50 in his return on April 1 and got up to 26:11 against Boston in the regular-season finale.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
History was on the Sixers\u2019 side Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The 2026 NBA playoffs are the sixth season in which the NBA has allowed teams 7 through 10 in each conference to participate in the Play-In Tournament. In all five of the previous iterations, the 10 teams seeded seventh at the end of the regular season survived to reach first-round series.<\/p>\n
In eight of 10 instances, the seven seed beat the eight seed head-to-head. The group of course includes the 76ers, the seventh seed in 2024 that beat Miami in this 7-8 game.<\/p>\n
The two seven seeds that lost that game \u2014 New Orleans in the West in 2024 and Miami in the East in 2023 \u2014 went on to win the next game and become the eighth seed in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Tuesday night, No. 8 Portland scored what the seeds say is an upset over No. 7 Phoenix with a 114-110 win to grab the seventh playoff seed in the West. The Suns will play the winner of Wednesday night\u2019s game between the Clippers and Golden State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 VJ Edgecombe on Sunday night looked back on his season and couldn\u2019t find the rookie wall.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,102,121,3871,6,207,66,7464],"class_list":{"0":"post-711694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","12":"tag-milwaukeebucks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116413999539207675","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711694","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=711694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}