It’s hard to imagine Nets guard Edmond Sumner was returning from a torn Achilles tendon this season. Especially after his latest performance against the New York Knicks on Wednesday night.
Sumner has been filling in as the starting point guard for the suspended Kyrie Irving and has quickly shown why general manager Sean Marks brought in the low-risk, high-reward guard. In the four games he’s started, Sumner has averaged 9.8 points, 3.8 boards, and 1.5 steals in 20.5 minutes.
The 26-year-old finished Wednesday night’s game with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the floor and put up nine of the 18 on 3-of-4 shooting from beyond the arc. The Nets have also seen him shoot 50% or better from beyond the arc in three of his four starts.
“You know you kind of feel like it’s itching around,” Sumner about his three-point shooting. “Once I kinda hit that one in Washington I got that monkey off my back. I knew it was coming around, I’m just sticking with the process, talking to my trainer, he sends me clips every game. Just knowing if I stuck to the process it would all come around.”
After missing all of last season with an Achilles injury, Sumner has regained that explosiveness and athleticism that was seen during a breakout 2020-21 season and during his college days. With each passing game, it seems that his game has gotten better and better.
However, Sumner said he was still getting over some mental hurdles in his game.
“There’s still a little mental block that happened within whereas like something my mind wouldn’t allow me to do it,” Sumner said earlier in the day Wednesday at the Nets practice facility. “But the speed that’s still there, which is like you said impressive for me. I don’t feel like I missed a step. Like I’m still just explosive, just certain stuff kind of my body won’t let me do and kind of got to tell my brain like you’re healthy, you’re good. But I mean everything else been going good. Obviously adjustment, I feel like my legs adjusting good now. … So I mean, everything’s going pretty good.”
For more Nets coverage, visit amNY.com and our affiliate site at TheBrooklynGame.com
And now with the three-point shots dropping it’s clear that the process for Sumner had been working.
“I think overall the looks have been good,” head coach Jacque Vaughn said. “The process has been right. Continue to trust each other. Spray that thing. We even said in the timeout, Kevin’s ability, he hit Edmond in the corner, they shifted, made 3. Did the same thing with Royce when he was at the elbow. He missed the shot but the process was right. We keep doing that we’ll be all right.”
