After 44 days of speculation, the pick is in. With the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Sixers selected VJ Edgecombe on Wednesday night, tapping the Bahamian guard out of Baylor as the organization’s newest franchise cornerstone.
The Sixers nearly went without a first-round pick altogether, but some lottery luck netted them this selection – and, in turn, Edgecombe, who possesses extraordinary athleticism that many believe provides him tantalizing upside. He will turn 20 years old next month, and the Sixers hope he will be an NBA star for many, many years to come, potentially joining forces with Tyrese Maxey, 24, as the core pillars of the franchise’s future.
There are basketball-centric items to figure out. Like Maxey and the Sixers’ best two other young players – 21-year-old Jared McCain and 25-year-old upcoming restricted free agent Quentin Grimes – Edgecombe is a guard. He measured at 6-foot-4 and 193 pounds with a 6-foot-7.5 wingspan at the NBA Draft Combine, and a long-term role on the wing might be far-fetched despite having better size than Maxey and McCain.
Edgecombe is a promising shooter, but still has some room to grow. The more important developmental arc for him will be ball-handling; Edgecombe must improve significantly there to become the caliber of on-ball scorer that most star guards are. Scoring against set NBA defenses as an on-ball player will be a challenge for him for the time being, and the Sixers hope Maxey, McCain, Grimes, Joel Embiid and Paul George all carry significant enough burdens in that department to allow Edgecombe’s short-term focus to be on his standout traits.
Among the areas where Edgecombe can help the Sixers right away: defensive playmaking. His combination of athletic ability and instincts on that end of the floor lends itself to forcing turnovers and creating chaos. He can be weaponized as a transition scorer, too, because no defender wants to get in front of this:
This is part of the sell for picking Edgecombe: If the Sixers are anything close to the idealized version of themselves next season, their prized rookie can focus on filling in the gaps as a role player while working behind the scenes on the areas of his game where major strides will be required to reach star outcomes. It is not a bad bet when considering the overwhelmingly positive reporting about Edgecombe’s mental makeup from experts and evaluators. But it is more important for Edgecombe to find a way to contribute than it is for most other rookies, as he is projected to make over $11 million in the first year of his rookie scale contract:
| Year | Salary |
| 2025-26 | $11,108,880 |
| 2026-27 | $11,663,880 |
| 2027-28 | $12,219,720 (team option) |
| 2028-29 | $15,445,727 (team option) |
| Total | $50,438,207 |
With Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper off the board, the Sixers elected to not trade down, then chose Edgecombe over Rutgers wing Ace Bailey, Duke guard/wing Kon Knueppel, Texas guard Tre Johnson and the rest of the class. It is not just an endorsement of Edgecombe’s athletic traits – easily unparalleled among any of those players – but also a gamble that his improving skill will continue to level up in the Sixers’ player development program.
After a miserable season followed by droves of skeptics, nailing the 2025 offseason is absolutely imperative for this organization, which is desperate to generate positive momentum ahead of a campaign that might represent its last opportunity to turn things around for the foreseeable future. The first and most important decision has been made, and that is the choice to put immense faith in Edgecombe.
GET TO KNOW VJ EDGECOMBE
What the scouts and numbers say | Edgecombe’s craziest highlights
Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam
Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
