Heading into the 2025 NBA Draft, fans had a pretty good idea of who the Philadelphia 76ers were going to draft with the third overall pick: VJ Edgecombe.

Now sure, there was a time when it looked like Ace Bailey was “the guy” for Philadelphia, the third-best player in the class who played a position of need, but as the spring progressed, Bailey rose up the proverbial board, and the narrative flipped following his workout with the team.

But when did the 76ers players know they'd likely be sharing a locker room with the Baylor product this fall? Well, according to Paul George on his namesake podcast, Podcast P presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment, he knew just after Edgecombe's now-legendary workout, as the 76ers rapidly dropped their poker face after watching the 19-year-old perform.

“I think I had just took off. When you came in because they, they reached out to us like we got VJ coming in to work out. I think it was on a Monday, right?” George asked his 76ers teammate.

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“And uh, we took off and I was like, ‘D**n, like we just left.' Like they just let me know and we just took off and by the end of the workout or by the end of that day, they was like, ‘We know who we're taking.' And that was before, you know, the Ace Bailey stuff was going around, and you know, him being linked to us. Um, and they felt strong at that point. They were like, ‘We know who we taking.' Like VJ's our guy. Great, great kid, works hard. You got the resume, the footage backs up everything. So, I knew early who we were going with.”

Whoa, did the 76ers give Edgecombe the controversial “draft promise,” guaranteeing that they could make him the No. 3 overall pick no matter what offers came their way? Nothing has surfaced to suggest that, and it seems rather unlikely the team would do so either way, considering Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper were borderline locks to go No. 1 and No. 2 to the Mavericks and Spurs. Still, considering no team came in with a grandmother offer for pick No. 3, it looked like the 76ers knew who they were going to take for a while and ultimately got their guy, just like players like PG expected.