Imhotep Charter’s Justin Edwards is Philly’s top high school player in 30 years. His mom worked two jobs to keep his dream alive.

Ebony Twiggs left home before sunrise to start her shift at Walmart and returned home past sunset after finishing her shift at Einstein Medical Center.

She worked two jobs, doing whatever it took as a single mother to fund her son’s basketball dream. And that sometimes meant skipping a bill to pay for her son to travel to a tournament or alerting her landlord that the rent would be late that month.

Justin Edwards, Twiggs’ son, is now the No. 1 player in the nation and a projected top-five NBA draft choice in 2024. The 6-foot-7 forward from West Oak Lane is the first Public League player since Rasheed Wallace in 1993 to be selected as a McDonald’s All-American. He’ll end his Public League career on Saturday in the championship game against West Philadelphia High School.

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But the allure of the NBA wasn’t what drove Twiggs from job to job. The former University City star just wanted her son to play basketball as a way to steer away from trouble. She introduced Edwards to the game when he was in second grade after being repeatedly called to his school.

Basketball, Twiggs thought, would be a way for Edwards to channel the energy that was sending him to the principal’s office. Her son’s conduct — “He was bad,” Twiggs said — improved, his grades flourished, and he fell in love with the game. So Twiggs worked all day to make sure her son could keep playing.

“He’s seen me crying. He’s seen me stressed out. He’s seen me trying to figure out how we’re going to pay this bill or that,” Twiggs said. “He’s seen all of that. I think that’s what drives him, too.”

On Thursday night, Edwards stood at the front of a crowded room at Imhotep and held up his McDonald’s All-American jersey as everyone snapped photos. This was a neat honor, yet not a surprise as Edwards is ranked No. 1 in his class by ESPN.

But he didn’t always seem destined for this. When Edwards arrived at Imhotep as a freshman, he was just another kid at the school on 21st and Godfrey.

“He was a skinny kid who was struggling to move and didn’t play any defense,” said Imhotep coach Andre Noble. “Justin wasn’t even in the Top 300 in the country. He was just a guy. But he’s a worker. It’s usually not like that. It’s usually like, ‘Oh, yeah, he has it.’ Justin wasn’t that. He just worked to put himself in the position that he’s in today.”

The work ethic that drove his mother to work 15 hours a day is what transformed Edwards into a five-star recruit headed to the University of Kentucky. He loved basketball, but he learned at Imhotep how to take it seriously. He was in the gym and weight room every day, worked tirelessly with Noble’s assistants, and didn’t give up when times were tough.

“I’m a hard worker and I want to make sure my kids are OK no matter what,” Twiggs said. “No matter what wall my back is against, I want my kids to know that their mom is going to try her best to make it happen.”

Edwards said he thought about quitting the sport after his freshman year, but his mom pushed him.

“She was always in my ear telling me to keep going and that everything will work out in the end,” Edwards said. “It was like I hit a brick wall and I didn’t know what to do to get over it. I would talk to her and she would tell me to keep going, it won’t always be perfect.”

He stayed with it and his game flourished. After Edwards’ sophomore season, Noble edited a highlight tape and sent it to his coaches. The difference was stark. Suddenly “just a guy” was “the guy.”

“We fuss at him all the time,” Noble said. “He eats it and he takes it: ‘Yes, coach. No, coach.’ He takes being coached well and that’s the reason why I know he’s going to translate. He’s not afraid to be coached. He doesn’t reject coaching. He accepts it and then tries to work on getting better.”

ESPN called Edwards last month to alert him that he was going to be named the No. 1 player in the senior class. After he hung up the phone, he burst into his mom’s room and told her the news.

“I was so hype,” Edwards said.

But his mom was sleeping. Twiggs woke up the next morning and asked her son if that was a dream. It really happened, he told her. Edwards is the first Philly player to be ranked No. 1 since Wallace. The city has long been a hotbed for high school basketball, yet this is rarefied air.

The Class of 2023 includes the sons of LeBron James and Dajuan Wagner — both of whom were the No. 1 player in their senior class before playing in the NBA — but it is the son of Ebony Twiggs who tops the list.

“He doesn’t have a name. We come from nowhere,” Twiggs said. “He’s making a name for himself as we speak and he’s literally grinded for everything that he’s getting. Nobody has handed him anything. No one said, ‘Oh, we’re going to take this boy under our wing and he’s going to get this.’ No, he worked so hard for all of this. I’ve seen him come into the house and be sore and hurting and get up the next day for practice.”

Twiggs was the MVP of the Public League girls’ championship in 2000 when University City topped Franklin Learning Center at Temple’s Liacouras Center. She had 20 points, 23 rebounds, and five blocks. Said Lurline Jones, University City’s legendary coach: “Ebony Twiggs had the game of her life.”

Last year, her son won the Public League title on the same floor. Sunday, he’ll try to do it again. His dream to play professionally was once his mom’s goal. She played at Cheyney University before signing with an agent and playing a season in Portugal when Edwards was a toddler.

Twiggs returned home after injuring an ankle, gave birth to her daughter, and shelved her career to raise her children despite a possible opportunity with the WNBA’s New York Liberty and offers to return overseas. Edwards is the star, but Twiggs says she’s “the originator.”

“I’m better than her, though,” Edwards said as Twiggs stood nearby. “She went the furthest, but I always tell her that I’ll go further. She can be the originator. I’m better, though.”

“I’m the originator though,” his mother responded. “I started all of this.”

“I’m better, though,” Edwards said.

“As you should be,” his mother answered.

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The originator wanted her son’s career to eclipse hers but refused to allow him to take any shortcuts. She didn’t let Edwards reclassify as a sophomore, which would have allowed him to repeat a grade and be one of the older players on the court. And she pushed him to pick a college instead of playing in the NBA’s developmental league, which would have allowed him to turn pro a year earlier.

Twiggs traveled with her son last summer to visit Kentucky, the school he said as a kid that he would attend after falling in love with the Wildcats from watching their highlight videos. So it was pretty surreal, Twiggs said, when Kentucky coach John Calipari offered Edwards a scholarship that weekend.

“I got chills. This is my son’s dream school. He has always talked about going to this school,” Twiggs said. “To see him literally marking off goals is crazy. I just put him in basketball for a way to use his energy. It’s crazy to go through this. Is this what other moms go through?”

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Twiggs now works as critical care technician at Cooper Hospital and she makes sure to tell every patient who her son is. She said it’s her goal to turn everyone at Cooper into a Kentucky fan. But her days at the hospital seem to be numbered.

“One of my goals is to retire my mom,” Edwards said. “That would mean a lot. If I’m able to retire my mom, then I feel like I’ve done a good job.”

Reaching that goal is still a year or so away but it’s much more tangible now than when Edwards was just a guy at Imhotep. A mock draft released this week by ESPN projected Edwards as the No. 4 pick in the 2024 NBA draft. It is widely accepted that the high school forward — “I can play any position,” Edwards said — will be in the NBA in 15 months.

Edwards said he tries to ignore the buzz, but his mom is well aware as she searches his name on the internet once or twice a week, always hunting for new articles to read.

“He’s like, ‘Come on, mom,’” Twiggs said. “I live with him, but I’m really his biggest fan.”

It’s amazing, Edwards said, to hear that he’s considered to be an NBA lottery pick. But that’s not where his focus is. He has a game on Saturday.

“I think when people start to pay attention to that, they start to lose focus on the main goal,” Edwards said. “The main goal is to get there, so I have to stay focused.”

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When Twiggs was balancing two jobs, her schedule would align about every two weeks to give her a day off from both gigs. It would finally be a reprieve. And if her son has his way, she’ll have plenty of days off ahead.

Twiggs taught her son how to work hard and Edwards transformed himself from unheralded high schooler to NBA prospect. He did it with the same grit that his mom used to wake up before sunrise for a 15-hour workday.

“His story is just so cool,” Noble said. “You don’t see it happen too much this way. Usually, you know, ‘That’s a guy and he’s probably going to be a McDonald’s All-American.’ This guy, he wasn’t that. He just worked and put himself into position. His motivation is his mom and his family. He’s going to Kentucky, which was his dream school since he was a little kid. This is like a fairy tale story.”