It's not often that a team hoping to contend drafts within the top three picks, and yet that's exactly how VJ Edgecombe came to the Philadelphia 76ers. The question that remains is what type of opportunity the rookie will have in terms of minutes.
Trying to predict how many minutes a rookie will get in their first game or season is usually a guessing game, a random shot in the dark. There are an infinite number of factors surrounding a rookie's playing time. Everything from injuries on the depth chart to draft pedigree to position played to expected wins of a team.
However, for the purposes of this prediction, I decided to utilize some historical data from head coach Nick Nurse to project how many minutes per game we can expect over the course of a rookie season, and in their debut.
The Subject
In the 2025 NBA Draft, the Philadelphia 76ers took a young, athletic guard/forward from Baylor with the third overall pick by the name of VJ Edgecombe. Edgecombe had a promising Summer League and, considering the Sixers' disastrous season last year, is seen as the fruit of their labor. As the third overall pick, Edgecombe is the highest-drafted rookie to be coached by Nurse as a head coach. This means that, for the purposes of this calculation, there would need to be some form of calculation of Edgecombe's project minutes.
Methodology: Rookie Season Minutes per Game Calculation
The first step in making this calculation was to identify all the rookies on Nick Nurse's teams, their draft positions, and their minutes per game. I then plotted each of these players on a graph with X being the overall pick and Y being their minutes per game in their rookie year. This included: Dewan Hernandez (59, 4.7), Jalen Harris (59, 13.2), Malachi Flynn (29, 19.7), Scottie Barnes (4, 35.4), Dalano Banton (46, 10.9), David Johnson (47, 1), Christian Kolokolo (33, 13.8), Adem Bona (41, 15.6) and Jared McCain (16, 25.7). I then eliminated all players from the data set who played less than 10 games, removing both Dewand Hernandez (6 games played) and David Johnson (2 games played).
From there, I calculated the slope of the line by utilizing the formula m = (y₂ - y₁) / (x₂ - x₁), where m equals the slope. However, since there were multiple points, I calculated six different slopes from each of the remaining points and then took the median of those slopes, giving me a projected slope of -0.87.
After that, I then had to find the y-intercept, which was now simple. By plugging in the slope of -0.87 and the closest data point to VJ Edgecombe's draft position (4, 35.4) into y = mx + b, I was able to calculate 38.88 as the y-intercept. This made the final calculation "y = -0.87x + 38.88".
I then put this line into Desmos and calculated that the third overall pick, based solely on draft position and Nick Nurse's historical data, will average 36.27 minutes per game, just ahead of Scottie Barnes's 35.4 minutes per game.
Methodology: Rookie Debut Projection
I then took this same process and did it all over again, this time replacing the minutes per game as a rookie variable with minutes played in their debut. This process yielded a slightly higher slope of -0.54, indicating Nick Nurse's tendency to rely on veterans earlier in the season and allow for rookies to grow into their own roles. Ultimately, this process yielded a line of "y = -0.54x + 35.16".
Using this line as my source for projection, Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe is predicted to play 33.54 minutes in his rookie debut on October 22, 2025, against the Boston Celtics.
Conclusion and Disclaimer
While the math behind these projections is technically correct, they are not meant to be taken as gospel or as fact. The process used is far from perfect, and if I were a more talented mathematician, I would have found a way to include things like injury projections, win projections, and a whole slew of other variables that will definitely impact these projections.
While ultimately things like playing time are impossible to predict perfectly, the hope is that this gives some sort of baseline of what Sixers fans can expect when it comes to Edgecombe's future playing time.
The Sixers will open their season with two preseason games against the New York Knicks. The first will take place in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, at 12:00 a.m. EDT. After that, the Sixers' season will officially start against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, at 7:30 PM EDT.
