Former Imhotep star Justin Edwards hopes to prove ‘I’m back to myself’ at NBA Draft Combine

CHICAGO — Reality finally hit Justin Edwards when he checked into his hotel and received a bag of gear, with NBA Draft Combine branding all over the walls.

“Wow, I’m really here,” the former Imhotep Charter star thought to himself.

Edwards is one of the prospects spending this week working out and interviewing in front of NBA personnel, taking part in a tentpole event in the pre-draft process. His path to the Wintrust Arena, however, has not been smooth.

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This time last year, Edwards was a national top-5 recruit coming out of high school, with one season at Kentucky projected as a pit stop before ascending into a lottery pick. Yet the 6-foot-7 wing said mental-health struggles affected his early-season play and, despite a strong finish, he has slipped to borderline status to even be selected.

His goal in Chicago: “Show everybody that I’m still that guy.”

“I feel like I’m back to myself now,” Edwards said Tuesday.

Edwards was one of the better performers in the combine’s first scrimmage, totaling 14 points and six rebounds. In the second quarter, he beat the defense down the floor for a one-handed dunk. He immediately pushed the ball off rebounds, and parlayed a steal into a pull-up jumper. He grabbed an offensive board, eventually got the ball back, and buried the three-pointer. And he sent a defender to the deck with a dribble move, leading to another deep shot.

Those were flashes of what made Edwards the No. 3-ranked player in the 2023 recruiting class according to 24/7, the MaxPreps Pennsylvania High School Player of the Year, and a two-time state champion. But after averaging 8.8 points and 3.4 rebounds in his one season at Kentucky, Bleacher Report’s mock draft recently slotted him as the 46th pick, while The Ringer’s had him ranked as the 59th-best prospect available. Analyst Kevin O’Connor praised Edwards’ athletic finishing, along with his willingness to pass, rebound, and play off teammates. But O’Connor critiqued Edwards’ struggles to create for himself and others with the ball in his hands.

Edwards attributes that initially subpar college production to encountering “real adversity” for the first time, while playing on a star-studded Kentucky roster and matching up against leveled-up competition. The negative voice in his head overpowered the positive one, and he “started to believe certain stuff that I was seeing about myself.” One missed shot would quickly snowball into a stretch of them.

“Which made me have certain bad games,” Edwards said, “because I would talk down on myself. Basically, I would put myself in a box.”

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Yet Edwards remained a gym rat, leaning on then-Kentucky coach John Calipari’s mantra that, “When all else fails, you just rely on your work.” He also leaned into deep conversations with his mother, Ebony Twiggs, a former basketball star who moved to Lexington with Edwards’ siblings, Akira and Tymir.

Some of those talks brought Edwards to tears. And one was a turning point.

“I’m one of those people that I feel like, anything that I do wrong, I’m disappointing my family,” Edwards said. “So she wanted to tell me, ‘Just forget about us. Just worry about yourself.’

“At first, I didn’t know what she meant. But now I know she was basically saying, ‘You don’t have to worry about us. We’re good. I just want you to be happy and be able to just play the game without having to think about [us].’”

That helped Edwards shift into a much-improved stretch run, including scoring 28 points on 10-of-10 shooting (including 4-of-4 from beyond the arc) in a February win over an Alabama team that would eventually advance to the Final Four. He finished the season shooting 48.6% from the floor, and 36.5% from three-point distance. And he prided himself on being able to guard multiple positions.

These days, Edwards is not paying attention to the “distraction” of where outsiders expect him to be drafted. He has gone through practice interviews to prepare for the questions teams might ask him later this week in Chicago. In late June, he anticipates his extended family will make the trip from Philly to New York City to experience the draft in person. Then, Mom plans to move to the city that selects her son — but added she probably would stay behind if he ever got traded.

“But I’m a mama’s boy,” Edwards said, “so I’m going to have to talk her out of that. I’m going to have to get her to go wherever I go.”

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Until then, Edwards will continue this pre-draft process that left him awestruck upon arriving in Chicago. And by the end of his week here, he hopes he has proved he is back to himself.

“All the adversity that I went through, I feel like that helped me become a better person,” Edwards said. " … I feel like not a lot of people have been able to do what I did, and be able to get back on the strong side of my mental health and stuff.

“Just being able to bounce back from that shows a lot.”