By Avi Tyagi
Let’s start defense first this time. V.J. is ready to be an on-ball defender. He is not to be trifled with in iso situations. He flips his hips fast, he’s got great recovery speed, he’s got a strong core and discipline to avoid fouling too often, and he’s willing to take contact. A true lunchpail defender on-ball. Good communicator, and excellent at finding help-side block opportunities. Off-ball, he falls asleep a little too often for my liking. But, again, show grace. He’s 19, that’s to be expected. The important part is the hustle and the discipline to play within a team scheme and be part of a collective. Edgecombe was a highly ranked recruit but doesn’t play like he was given anything. He’s a true competitor and it’s easy to see why coaches would love him. How can you not? He does what you ask. It would be nice to see V.J. fight over more screens and not just go to the switch as often, but that might partially be a coaching point. It’s tough asking even your star defensive freshman to just go full HOFer Jrue Holiday. V.J. has the physical tools for lateral agility and flexibility to get more comfortable consistently getting low and skinny and then chasing back into the play on balance. It’ll just take reps and learning experience. Cleaning up focus errors will come first.
Offensively, V.J. is merely fine. There’s nothing he does particularly well right now but there’s nothing terrible or hopeless either. His shot has only grown more consistent and it appears he’s doing a better job of transferring energy from fingertips through the ball with an improved arc. He can attack with both hands on either side of the rim and he’s a supremely explosive dunker, obviously. The rest of the offensive package, meh? He finishes somewhat poorly at the rim on layups (under 50%). It almost reminds me of Westbrook in terms of feel for the glass and rim (although not that extreme). He’s a good midrange shooter, but not some dynamic presence. V.J. is a nice extra passer and can set up perimeter shots consistently with the right footwork, but nothing screams special offensive player off the bat. How much of that might be ability vs opportunity? Hard to say for sure. After all, Anthony Edwards was deemed a decent number 1 pick for a “down” draft cycle because he chucked shots in a laissez faire environment and took full advantage of the liberties. We saw excellent downhill attacks and the seeds of the great 3-point pull-up footwork he’d display in his future All-NBA seasons, but almost none of the shooting accuracy at high volume. V.J. isn’t as crafty or as sturdy or able to cut sharply the same way Edwards can and hasn’t shown that same comfort as a pull-up shooter. But he’s still a great athlete, with a well-put together handle, who can attack both ways, and has a shot that might soon be ready-to-go. Those types of players, especially if they display maturity for their age, feel like very safe picks to make massive leaps years into their career. It truly wouldn’t shock me if he established himself as the best player in this class one-day. I’d consider it very unlikely because of who pick 1 and 2 are, but V.J.’s star shines so bright that the possibility does exist. A supercharged Derrick White would build upon the baseline of “fabulous two-way guard”. That enters a special new territory. With V.J., it’s possible.
