Has Sixers Rookie VJ Edgecombe Hit a Wall?

PHILADELPHIA — Tyrese Maxey was ready to answer before the question was done being asked.

Perhaps that said a lot in its own right. Perhaps he'd noticed a drop-off, too.

"Probably huge," Maxey told reporters when asked for his perspective on how the All-Star break would help rookie sensation VJ Edgecombe.

"He's never played these types of minutes in his life. Even playing a 40-minute basketball game in college is way different than this."

The Sixers played 54 games before the All-Star break. Edgecombe suited up for 50 of them.

He played 1,080 minutes over just 33 games at Baylor last season. He's played 1,768 minutes in his rookie season in the NBA.

Maxey stated that Edgecombe's undertaking thus far in the NBA would equate to a full season at the previous highest level he had played. That would be wrong. He's encroaching on double the volume of games and minutes with 28 games to go in his rookie year.

"We're asking him to do a lot. So he's probably definitely tired," Maxey said. "But it's OK, like I said, this is what the break is for."

But Maxey can't be in Edgecombe's mind. None of us can. He can only communicate what he's seeing on the court, what he's experienced in his own career and what he has the liberty to divulge from behind closed doors.

Yet, there's no denying that Edgecombe has not been the guy from the first several months of the season over the last month or so.

Is he tired?

On SI analyzed 10 different metrics to determine whether Edgecombe ran into the inevitable wall that most rookies hit.

Before we dive in, a quick note — Unless stated otherwise, all stats via NBA.com or Cleaning The Glass.

The offensive indicators

Shooting is often regarded as the telltale indicator of fatigue. If any player is in an ongoing pattern of missing jumpers short, it's believed that their legs are fatigued and they're not getting enough energy under the basketball.

	Oct. 21 - Jan. 10	Jan. 10 - Feb. 12	% Change
C/S 3P%	40	32.3	-19
Volume per game	4.2	3.4	-19
Pull-up 3P%	32.1	28.1	-12
Volume per game	1.7	1.8	6
Drives per game	7.4	6	-19

The volume per game doesn't really tell us much of anything about fatigue. Its purpose is to present the sample size of the data. Drives per game were included here because that can tell us about how much burst Edgecombe has in his legs. That, in conjunction with the efficiency on threes dropping dramatically, is a pretty strong indicator that fatigue is in play.

It would be somewhat easy for the dip in threes to fall under the radar a bit because Edgecombe has raised both his volume and efficiency in the mid-range, which in turn has helped stabilize his scoring column.

But there are more layers to be peeled back.

Other basic box score metrics

Rebounds can often be considered circumstantial. Are you or aren't you in the right place at the right time to secure the ball popping off the rim? So there is some noise in including that as a measure of fatigue. But in Edgecombe's case, rebounding can be considered a measure of motor. Many of his rebounds come off long and he simply beats everyone else to the spot. But steals and blocks have less noise.

	Oct. 21 - Jan. 10	Jan. 10 - Feb. 12	% Change
Rebounds per game	5.5	5.2	-5
Steals per game	1.6	1.3	-19
Blocks per game	0.5	0.4	-20

Steals can tell us something about how well Edgecombe is able to stay with the ball, which in turn helps us understand how quickly his feet are moving on the floor and how much his motor can sustain. Blocks would tell us how quick he is off his feet and further the examination of his motor.

But in this case, the difference is very marginal. We can't really conclude much of anything from these metrics.

We can track some other variables, though.

Speed and distance

This will give us an idea of how much energy is being used on the court and whether Edgecombe has been able to sustain that energy as the season has gone on.

	Oct. 21 - Jan. 10	Jan. 10 - Feb. 12	% Change
Miles traveled per game	2.5	2.6	4
Average speed	4.26	4.25	0.23

Edgecombe has maintained a stable speed and distance as the minutes have ticked up. It's not like he has much of an option, though. You either move with the pace of the game or you get benched. It also probably helps him preserve some stamina that Joel Embiid really found his stride at the start of the new year, playing most nights and getting to the foul line consistently. But we'll use this data at the base of our conclusion.

That leaves us with two measures of hustle.

Hustle metrics

Deflections and loose balls recovered have long been lynchpins of Edgecombe's appeal to coaches at every level he's played. Not only do they capture his desire to win, but they also help measure motor and, more directly, quickness to the floor.

	Oct. 21 - Jan. 10	Jan. 10 - Feb. 12	% Change
Loose balls recovered per game	1.4	0.8	-43
Deflections per game	3.6	3.4	-6

1.4 loose balls recovered per game doesn't seem like a major starting point, but it is somewhat alarming that that measure has dropped almost 50 percent over the last month. The deflections have remained pretty stable, though.

Of the 10 metrics used, eight have exhibited decline over the last month. Not all of those declines were dramatic enough to warrant much consideration beyond the conclusion that there is noise at play. But it is meaningful that virtually everything has tailed off.

We can approach a conclusion in one of two ways.

We could decide that most everything is stable enough that we can't definitively conclude anything. Or, we could say that the energy expensed in speed and distance has remained stable, yet most everything else has declined. So while Edgecombe is keeping pace with the game, his production and efficiency have dropped. Most pronounced is his decline in efficiency from three. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that Edgecombe must have hit a rookie wall.

That is up to the reader to debate. But, personally, the change in three-point shooting is too significant to ignore.

Nick Nurse is certainly of the mind that there are some signs of fatigue.

"I wouldn't say it's super noticeable. But I think there's probably some there. I mean, he's already played way more games than he's ever played in his life in a real season. I think you're going to see that in a rookie almost all the time a little bit," Nurse told reporters ahead of the game against the Knicks.

"Whether they start super slow and not quite figure out the speed of the NBA at first, which he didn't do. He's obviously logging a lot of minutes, which we love. But I think it's more just part of the up and down of a rookie season a little bit more than anything. He still makes some incredibly athletic plays each and every night. Nothing wrong with him physically."

Once All-Star Friday night passes through Intuit Dome, perhaps Edgecombe will be relaxing on Manhattan Beach or Dockweiler Beach near Inglewood, California, enjoying the ocean with the time off his feet.