VJ Edgecombe was one of the lone bright spots in the shorthanded Sixers‘ 144-106 loss to the Boston Celtics. Edgecombe had 19 points, three rebounds, four assists, and four steals in 26 minutes of action.

I don’t mind telling anyone who missed the game that this was a pretty pointless exercise. Here’s what I saw.

A VJ Edgecombe leap isn’t waiting for anyone

In some NBA circles, VJ Edgecombe was viewed as a big loser of the offseason once the Sixers signed LeBron James. How could Edgecombe take a step forward, skeptics asked, with so many stars around him dominating the ball? He appears to be on a mission to prove that mindset wrong, and has played well with and without the other big names alongside him in the preseason.

With a little more room to stretch his wings on Saturday, Edgecombe got to work early, firing a few long jumpers up before eventually settling into a more inside-the-arc approach. To my eye, he looks markedly better as a driver, with a slightly tighter handle and added strength allowing him to ward off defenders before he ultimately takes advantage of his top-end speed. Edgecombe attacked a lot of bigger Celtics defenders in Saturday’s first half — Hugo Gonzalez and Paul George to name a couple — and did an excellent job of probing the paint, with some excellent drive-and-dish opportunities squandered by Sixers reserves.

Edgecombe did plenty of hunting his own shot, of course, and has done well to draw and finish through contact in the preseason. He had a gnarly finish in Saturday’s first half, hanging in the air while taking a hit and ultimately cashing in three the hard way:

The beauty of Edgecombe’s game is that he is capable of getting a lot of his work done in short bursts, scoring on back cuts, fast breaks, and explosive downhill moves when the ball swings to him on the weak side. He has some of the classic two-guard kit as an attacker, with more of the combo-guard passing that you need to thrive in today’s game. I feel great about where he’s at heading into his second year, and can’t wait to see him take the floor with the vet stars every night.

The Sixers need another big

The Sixers have small-ball options that I genuinely like behind Joel Embiid. Jabari Walker has had good moments in the preseason, Dean Wade could be the guy in switchable lineups, and LeBron James makes some sense in point-center situations where they’re just trying to juice up the offense. But if this team is reliant on Adem Bona and small ball to get through nights without Joel Embiid, I am fairly concerned about how bad the rebounding might be this year.

Admittedly, it’s hard to evaluate the team when 3/5 of the starting lineup and a good chunk of the important reserves are out, but there are a lot of teams competing for positioning at the top of the East who will crush them on the glass on Embiid-less nights (which might hold with him, too). Boston is one of those teams, and it made it hard to even evaluate some of the players on the floor as they went to work in matchups they’d never reasonably be expected to perform in. Walker had another good individual game, knocking down shots and making an impact on the glass. He also had to commit six fouls to avoid Mitchell Robinson completely tilting the game as an offensive rebounder and rim runner.

Right now, a lot is riding on Bona not just being good, but better in departments that have been genuine weaknesses for him in the past. We haven’t even seen him play with this group yet, so we’ll see if he’s able to give it a go for the finale.

Justin Edwards is in the bad place

When the Sixers signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, I was hopeful that there would be enough competition for minutes that he wouldn’t be a guaranteed member of the rotation after two tough seasons in Orlando and Memphis. KCP has been mostly fine this preseason, but he feels locked into his spot, thanks in part to Justin Edwards falling flat on his face to open camp and preseason.

Box score watchers will disagree with me here, because Edwards got a few shots to go down in extended fourth-quarter garbage time, and I ultimately believe in him as a spot-up shooter. With enough reps, I think he would hover in the high 30s from downtown. But Edwards looks like a player who has not progressed in any meaningful way at reading the game, and is too deep into his career to be playing a step behind the opponent on both ends of the floor.

His first half against Boston was a total disaster, with Edwards coughing the ball up four times while playing alongside Maxey and Edgecombe, who were doing the lion’s share of the ball-handling. Edwards also couldn’t get himself to the right spot while rotating through defensive possessions, overrunning or underthinking as the ball swung around him and the Celtics carved Philly up.

If you want to be generous to him, there’s no scenario where he should be on the floor this year as anything more than a fifth option, taking decision-making out of his hands entirely. But I would aspire for more out of a third-year wing, who has been under the same coaching staff for his entire career, giving him few excuses to constantly look this lost.

Other notes

— Thanks to all the absences, Labaron Philon is getting important preseason reps, one of the few silver linings of being subjected to slopball while the stars rest. It has been a mixed bag for the rookie guard, but I’m heartened by his approach even if the results have lagged behind for now.

Philon’s ball control and vision are advanced beyond his years, which gives him a real claim for backup point guard minutes right away. It also separates him from some other skinny guards who have failed in recent years, like Rob Dillingham, who couldn’t ultimately score enough to hang in the league. The shot has been up and down for Philon so far, but he made several more nifty passes in Saturday’s Celtics matchup, waiting out the defense before thrusting tough bounce passes through traffic to create easy scoring opportunities for his guys. And this was his best game as a scorer yet, with Philon making a couple of threes in the fourth to round out a stellar floor game.

One last thing I know the coaches will notice — Philon missed a shot in the first half, then sprinted back on the other end to cut off a Celtics transition opportunity, with the rest of his teammates eventually catching up. Commitment to that job matters a lot as you’re trying to break in as a rookie.