{"id":714423,"date":"2026-04-20T05:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T05:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714423\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T05:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T05:42:26","slug":"philadelphia-76ers-star-named-finalist-for-major-nba-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714423\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia 76ers’ star named finalist for major NBA award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers’ star named finalist for major NBA award <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NBA Award season is approaching and one Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> player has a chance to hoist some hardware.<\/p>\n

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Rookie guard V.J. Edgecombe<\/a> was named a finalist<\/a> for the Rookie of the Year award along with Cooper Flagg<\/a> of the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> and Kon\u00a0Knueppel of the Charlotte Hornets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

V..J. Edgecombe named Rookie of the Year finalist<\/p>\n

Even getting included in the group of finalists is an accomplishment for Edgecombe, who the Sixers selected with the No. 3 overall pick in the draft last June.<\/p>\n

Edgecombe immediately stepped into a starting spot for Philadelphia<\/a> in his first season and never looked back. He provided the team with solid two-way production right from the jump.<\/p>\n

As a rookie, Edgecombe started in 75 games for the Sixers and averaged 16.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.4 steals per performance. His production is especially impressive as it came for a playoff team, as opposed to Flagg and\u00a0Knueppel, who both play for teams that failed to qualify for postseason play.<\/p>\n

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If Edgecombe ultimately wins the award, he would be the first Sixers player to do so since Ben Simmons<\/a> (2016-17) and just the fourth in franchise history.<\/p>\n

Other 2025-26 NBA award finalists<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the finalists for all of the other major awards.<\/p>\n

Defensive Player of the Year: Chet Holmgren<\/a> (Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>), Victor Wembanyama<\/a> (San Antonio Spurs<\/a>), Ausar Thompson<\/a> (Detroit Pistons<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Sixth Man of the Year: Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a> (Denver Nuggets<\/a>), Keldon Johnson<\/a> (San Antonio Spurs), Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a> (Miami Heat<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Coach of the Year: J.B. Bickerstaff (Detroit Pistons), Mitch Johnson (San Antonio Spurs), Joe Mazzulla (Boston Celtics<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Most Improved Player: Jalen Duren<\/a> (Detroit Pistons), Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> (Atlanta Hawks<\/a>), Deni Avdija<\/a> (Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Clutch Player of the Year:\u00a0Anthony Edwards<\/a> (Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a>), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> (Oklahoma City Thunder), Jamal Murray<\/a> (Denver Nuggets)<\/p>\n

More Philadelphia 76ers news:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia 76ers’ star named finalist for major NBA award originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,375,208,1026,7,2643,75,473,366,225,149,980,187,188,3279,4959,912,762,2850,968,189,152,6,379,179,678,207,3817,471,43198,474,209,911,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-714423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-anthony-edwards","10":"tag-atlanta-hawks","11":"tag-ausar-thompson","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-ben-simmons","14":"tag-boston-celtics","15":"tag-charlotte-hornets","16":"tag-chet-holmgren","17":"tag-cooper-flagg","18":"tag-dallas-mavericks","19":"tag-deni-avdija","20":"tag-denver-nuggets","21":"tag-detroit-pistons","22":"tag-edgecombe","23":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","24":"tag-jalen-duren","25":"tag-jamal-murray","26":"tag-keldon-johnson","27":"tag-kon-knueppel","28":"tag-miami-heat","29":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","32":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","33":"tag-philadelphia","34":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","35":"tag-philadelphia76ers","36":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","37":"tag-rookie-of-the-year-award","38":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","39":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","40":"tag-tim-hardaway-jr","41":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714423","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=714423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}