{"id":163885,"date":"2025-10-23T05:35:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=163885"},"modified":"2025-10-23T07:07:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T11:07:31","slug":"sixers-rookie-vj-edgecombe-bests-lebron-james-nba-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/23\/sixers-rookie-vj-edgecombe-bests-lebron-james-nba-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixers Rookie Bests LeBron James In NBA Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By the time that the Philadelphia 76ers were on the clock, everyone knew that they were leaning towards using the third overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft on hyper-athletic Baylor freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edgecvj01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">VJ Edgecombe<\/a>. He didn&#8217;t initially seem to be their preferred choice, as they were fascinated by Rutgers phenom freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baileac01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ace Bailey<\/a>. On the outside looking in were scoring-minded Texas freshman <a class=\"yoast-text-mark\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnstr03.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tre Johnson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was only one game, but after the Sixers&#8217; season opener against the Boston Celtics, they&#8217;re probably smiling ear to ear about the prospect that they decided to go with. In what turned out to be a narrow 117-116 victory, Edgecombe was absolutely spectacular. Taking advantage of the increased space he gets at the pro level, he attacked the rim with ferocity. He wasn&#8217;t afraid to shoot from long-distance, with exactly half (13) of his shot attempts coming from 3. Last but not least, he was a two-way playmaker, making connective passes and playing hard nosed defense.<\/p>\n<h2>Sixers Rookie VJ Edgecombe Bests LeBron James In NBA Debut<\/h2>\n<p>By the end of the first quarter, Edgecombe had 14 points, breaking Los Angeles Lakers superstar <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>&#8216;s previous record (12) for the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAonPrime\/status\/1981185500967731467\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">most points in the first quarter<\/a> of an NBA debut (h\/t NBA on Prime), which he set in 2003 with the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of the game, Edgecombe had amassed 34 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and one steal in 42 minutes. He shot 13-26 from the field and 5-13 from 3. The only real blemish in the box score was his free-throw conversion rate (3-6, 50.0%).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">VJ EDGECOMBE JUST HAD THE MOST POINTS IN AN NBA DEBUT SINCE WILT CHAMBERLAIN \ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8<\/p>\n<p>34 for the #3 pick&#8230; 3rd highest-scoring debut ever in the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sixers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@sixers<\/a> win! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xwjvqMZcsH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/xwjvqMZcsH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/1981184835595956294?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Edgecombe&#8217;s performance didn&#8217;t just overshadow James&#8217;s though.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"896\" height=\"580\" class=\"size-full wp-image-163889\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/10\/USATSI_20603117_168404789_lowres.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/10\/USATSI_20603117_168404789_lowres.jpg 896w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/10\/USATSI_20603117_168404789_lowres-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/10\/USATSI_20603117_168404789_lowres-768x497.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 896px) 100vw, 896px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He bested Sixers legend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/iversal01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Allen Iverson<\/a>&#8216;s rookie debut, which he <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAPR\/status\/1981183765771592182\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ended with 30 points<\/a>. He had scored the most points a rookie scored in their NBA debut since Hall of Fame center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chambwi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wilt Chamberlain<\/a>\/a&gt; (43 points in 1959). It was actually the third-most points scored by a rookie in their NBA debut all-time, with 1954 first overall pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/selvyfr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frank Selv<\/a>y scoring 35 points.<\/p>\n<p>Edgecombe probably won&#8217;t be scoring 34 points on 50.0% shooting from the field every game. Nevertheless, he could hardly have done any better in his first official NBA outing. On Wednesday night, that&#8217;s all that mattered.<\/p>\n<h3>Comparing The Rookies<\/h3>\n<p>One game doesn&#8217;t make a player. However, as previously mentioned, Philadelphia was also seriously intrigued by Bailey and Johnson ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft. With that in mind, it&#8217;s worth looking at how those potential Sixers selections looked in their NBA debut.<\/p>\n<p>After a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/09\/oft-criticized-jazz-rookie-ace-bailey-preseason-debut\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">riveting preseason performance<\/a> with the Utah Jazz, who drafted him fifth overall, Bailey was moved to the bench. This is ironic as one of the reasons <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/17\/2025-nba-draft-curious-case-ace-bailey\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">he was so selective<\/a> about the teams he worked out for pre-draft was his desire to be a Day 1 starter. In 20 minutes, he recorded two points, two assists, and four rebounds. He went 1-5 from the field and 0-2 from 3. Right now, those who were rooting for him to fail because they were turned off by his desire to control where he was drafted suddenly feel vindicated.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson performed pretty well for the Washington Wizards, who drafted him sixth overall. Ironically, the Wizards were the team that Bailey wanted to get drafted by. Nevertheless, Johnson&#8217;s a high upside hooper who truly loves the sport. That and his prodigious scoring ability will be enough for D.C., at least for now. In Johnson&#8217;s NBA debut, he tallied 16 points, five rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in 26 minutes. He shot 5-11 from the field, doing most of his damage from beyond the arc, where he went 4-8.<\/p>\n<div class=\"modal-image-setImageMetadata\">\n<p class=\"ng-binding\">\u00a9 Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the time that the Philadelphia 76ers were on the clock, everyone knew that they were leaning towards using the third overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft on hyper-athletic Baylor freshman VJ Edgecombe. He didn&#8217;t initially seem to be their preferred choice, as they were fascinated by Rutgers phenom freshman Ace Bailey. On the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":163890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1608,62,556,3,24,18],"tags":[49399,122,38,98,49827,49644,2014],"class_list":["post-163885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-76ers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-nba-draft","category-news","category-jazz","category-wizards","tag-ace-bailey","tag-allen-iverson","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba-draft","tag-tre-johnson","tag-vj-edgecombe","tag-wilt-chamberlain"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163891,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163885\/revisions\/163891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}