Edmond Sumner Talks Challenging Himself Through Mental Blocks

Coming off a tough Achillies injury, Brooklyn Nets guard Edmond Sumner is working is way over the hurdles of a mental block.

© Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Through the storms of controversy the Brooklyn Nets have dealt with in the opening weeks of the regular season, some light is starting to peak through the dark clouds. That same analogy applies to Edmond Sumner. 

After concluding the best season of his stort NBA career during the 2020-21 season with the Indiana Pacers, Sumner suffered a torn Achillies while doing an off-season workout. Not only did the injury - an injury that has derailed sports athlete's careers - sidelined Sumner for the 2021-22 season but he was also not on a team. Brooklyn took the low-risk chance on Sumner, signing him as a free-agent and the 26-year-old guard has fully taken advantage of the opportunity. 

"His confidence [is] growing. That’s a tough injury to come back from," said Kevin Durant, who also came off an Achillies injury in the past, on Edmond Sumner. "You don’t know how you’ll feel, how your body will respond. But he’s going out there and trying stuff. That’s the best way for you to get over an injury is just to try, test yourself, push yourself to the limit. He’s getting into the paint, making threes and he’s just playing fast. I’m excited for him."

The 6-foot-4 guard is showing little to no signs of a player coming off an Achillies injury. His lightening quick speed - an athletic trait he was known for coming out of Xavier and with the Pacers - has been on full display. His explosiveness is sharp, and throughout this past off-season, countless videos were uploaded of him doing acrobatic slams. Those takeaways are from the viewers standpoint. 

In Sumner standpoint, he disclosed, like any athlete coming off a serious injury, he's dealing with a mental block in some avenues of his game. He's been working on telling himself that he's healthy and can revamp his entire skillset. 

“I feel like that's still part of the getting over that hurdle. There's still a little mental block that happened within whereas like something my mind wouldn’t allow me to do it, but the speed that's still there, which is like you said impressive for me," Sumner said. "I don’t feel like I missed a step. 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 into what we in 12 games and stuff like that. So I mean, everything's going pretty good.”

Sumner is kicking off the rust as each day passes. He's getting more and more comfortable with his new pairs of teammates and is on track early to have yet another career year. To make things sweeter, he's doing that in a starter role while Kyrie Irving (team suspension) is away from the team. 

Jacque Vaughn has started Sumner in four of the five games he's coached the Nets. In those four games, Sumner has averaged 9.8 points, 3.8 boards, and 1.5 steals in 20.5 minutes. More importantly, his 3-Point shot has been electric - three of the four games shooting 50.0 percent and above. In Wednesday night's blowout win over the New York Knicks, he went 3-of-4 from behind the arc. 

“You know you kind of feel like it’s itching around," said Sumner on his 3-Point shot raising confidence. "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 comer around.”

The rise of Sumner is the latest example of what the Nets General Manager, Sean Marks said he wanted after last season's disappointing ending: to bring in players with chips on their shoulder to help drive the broken culture the franchise suffered last season. 

"I'm happy. I'm healthy and want to continue to stay healthy. I know the more reps it's going to continue to get better and better," Sumner said. "Flow in games getting better and better. I don’t really have no set goals. Obviously, you want to continue to show that I'm improving and stuff like that and my rhythm was coming back. I won't put too much pressure on myself to be Mr. Perfect right now.

"It's frustrating for me when I'm not hitting shots that I know I can hit. I'm just gonna stick with them in the gym and get my extra shots. Like my body's just not, like that was the biggest thing, just in my whole body adjusting, everything moving in one alignment.”