You need stars to win in the NBA. You also need winning players. In the last two years, the Sixers seem to be targeting the latter — or players who are both.
For weeks, the debates got intense.
Once the Sixers were awarded the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, it all began. While some folks might’ve thrown around names like Tre Johnson or Kon Knueppel or liked the idea of trading up or down, it really boiled down to this:
Should the Sixers go for the star upside of Ace Bailey or the high floor of VJ Edgecombe?
The Sixers chose Edgecombe for a number of reasons — not the least of which is he has plenty of upside in his own right — but his character seems like a major factor.
Sure, the team is no doubt tantalized by his athletic prowess — after all, it was a mandate from Daryl Morey for the team to get younger and more dynamic — but when you consider who they took with their second-round pick, it makes you think even more.
At No. 35, the team took Johni Broome out of Auburn. Broome was one of the best players in the country this past season and one of the more decorated college players we’ve seen recently. He’ll also turn 23 years old, is sort of a tweener, and, respectfully, didn’t quite have the athleticism of other players still on the board.
Even free-agent signees Trendon Watford and Jabari Walker were impressive when speaking to the media for the first time. Watford is close friends with Tyrese Maxey and you can see how he has a similar blend of doing things the right way while also being highly competitive. Walker, the son of longtime NBA forward Samaki, will soon turn 23 but carries himself like a seasoned vet.
“With more opportunity, more work comes,” Walker said, a quote that could’ve been pulled from Jalen Hurts’ diary.
It all feels purposeful. Yes, you need stars and high-end NBA talent to win in this league, but you also need winners. It doesn’t seem like an accident the Sixers have been accumulating the latter in recent years.
“Where we can get more confidence that a player has two things,” Morey said on draft night, “which is they understand that they’re not where they need to be, they understand they’re not yet [an All-Star] in the league, and then they have the work ethic to close that gap. If a player has that, that’s very interesting to us, generally.”
You can trace this strategy’s roots back to 2020. The Sixers had Tyrese Maxey fall into their lap at No. 21. At that point, Morey simply took the obvious best player on the board. Turns out, that player was also a maniacal worker, incredible teammate and a great leader. With everything that’s gone on since Maxey’s arrival (a whole freaking lot), he’s taken it all in stride.
He’s an ideal player to lead the next phase of Sixers basketball. The reality is he’s already the leader of the current team, even with the presence of Joel Embiid and Paul George. Ask every rookie, free agent or player acquired in a trade — the first player they hear from when they join the team is Maxey. He leads by example and pushes everyone around him to be better.
You can go back to last year’s draft when digging into this philosophical shift. The team took Jared McCain in the first round and Adem Bona in the second. You could tell from their first availabilities with Philly media these two players were different. They were mature, exuded confidence in their current abilities while humbly admitting their games had room to grow. They both expressed a desire to learn from coaches and veterans on the team.
All of these players — Maxey, McCain, Edgecombe, Bona, Broome, Watford, Walker — have what you’d call a growth mindset. They’re all talented enough to have made it to the NBA, but none of them are content with just getting there.
Sure, they all want to be great, but above all, they all want to win.
“When you hate losing, you do whatever it takes [to win],” Broome said after he was drafted. “Whether that’s owning up to your mistakes or calling out one of your teammates’ mistakes, I think that’s what helps winning — when everyone’s bought in and everybody’s on the same page of wanting to win.”
When it comes to the Sixers’ young core, there’s no debate — they’re bought in.