Anthony Edwards: The Evolution of an NBA Star
Two days after what Anthony Edwards labeled as “the most important game” of his career, securing the victory against the Golden State Warriors to avoid a 2-0 deficit in the Western Conference semifinals, the Minnesota Timberwolves star faced another challenge, this time in the third game of the series.
With “Playoff Jimmy” Butler in top form, resuming the role of primary scorer that he dominated in Miami, Edwards, the league’s fourth-highest scorer in the regular season, began to stand out. Butler scored 18 points in the first half, leading his team without Stephen Curry to a two-point lead at halftime.
Edwards, for his part, had only scored eight points in the first half, with 3 of 12 in field goals, including 1 of 6 in three-pointers. The Wolves were outscored by 11 points during his 20 minutes on the court.
However, as he often does, the 23-year-old star came out on fire, his supreme skill and elite athleticism often leaving even an 18-year veteran like Wolves guard Mike Conley in awe.
“There are times when I get home and sit down to think that I could be, at this moment, a teammate of one of the best players who have played this game,” Conley commented.
Mike Conley
Edwards not only scored points, 28 in the second half alone, but he did it with style. His second-half performance recalled why the 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound guard has already drawn comparisons to Michael Jordan.
His dunk, with his team losing by five at the end of the third quarter, when he launched himself from the semi-circle just inside the free throw line and finished with a right-handed hammer that reduced Warriors power forward Kevon Looney to the equivalent of a crushed insect on a windshield.
And his triple, with his team down six at the start of the fourth, when Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski refused to give him space, so Edwards simply created something, stepping back and reaching the apex of his jump before releasing his shot.
And then there was perhaps his most critical play.
On the left wing, Edwards was triple-teamed by Butler, Looney, and Podziemski. Given his obvious offensive rhythm, no one would have been surprised to see him rise up and shoot over the trio.
Instead, he fed an open Julius Randle at the top of the key with the ball and then moved to the right wing to give Jaden McDaniels a clean look at a three to put Minnesota up by six with 3:20 remaining. Golden State never got it closer than four after that.
There was no official statistic associated with Edwards’ play. Randle was credited with the assist. But the sequence was a tangible example of Edwards’ real-time evolution as a complete threat, with his decision-making driving the improbable shift of the Wolves, from being one of the least reliable teams in the NBA in crucial moments to one of the most.
Minnesota has recorded a 4-0 record in games featuring clutch time this postseason, outscoring its opponents 45-16 in those minutes, according to data.
Edwards has 15 points on 4 of 7 shooting in his 14 postseason minutes in clutch moments, and he has bolstered that effort with five assists and zero turnovers, the most assists without a turnover in clutch playing time by any player in the 2025 playoffs.
“My coach [Chris] Hines always tells me: ‘Michael Jordan had Steve Kerr’,” Edwards said. “He always tells me things like that. So, it’s about being able to trust my teammates.”
Anthony Edwards
But as natural as it may seem to Edwards now, it has been a season-long process to get there.
FIVE MONTHS AGO, Edwards entered Chase Center for the second night of a home-and-home series against the Golden State Warriors. The Wolves lost 114-106, leaving their season record at 12-11, and Edwards was a primary reason why.
After returning them to the game in the third quarter, scoring 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting, and hitting a three-pointer that put them ahead with 4:47 remaining in the quarter, he proceeded to take his team out of it. In the crucial moment, he shot 0-of-6 with a turnover. The Warriors closed with a 9-0 run.
The Wolves had seen this before.
“In the last five minutes, I just wanted to score, score, score because I wanted to show the Warriors that I could take them out,” said Minnesota coach Chris Finch. “He went into the team afterwards and apologized. He said, ‘That’s on me.’ He just stopped creating for everyone down the stretch.”
What exacerbated Finch’s frustration was the fact that just two days earlier, the Wolves had easily defeated the Warriors, with Edwards scoring 30 points and dishing out nine assists.
“He played an incredible game,” Finch said.
Hines remembers that defeat and the lessons learned from it.
“He’s the kid you tell not to eat chocolate and he’s got chocolate on his face,” Hines said. “And you say, ‘Hey, buddy, did you just eat chocolate?’ He says, ‘No.’ We just told you, buddy, not to eat chocolate! That’s him.”
Even so, however obvious his execution was at the end of the game, his teammates were drawn to him.
“That was part of our growth as a team,” Randle said. “And it really wasn’t his fault. He said, ‘Screw it, let me try to carry our team to victory.’ He’s the ultimate competitor. But he was able to recognize, ‘Hey, man, I have to be better.’ That’s Ant. He doesn’t hesitate to take the blame, and he’s obviously going to get praise, but he constantly wants to improve.”
Hines says he knows Edwards sees himself as an alpha and gravitates toward killer competitors like Jordan and Kobe Bryant. But Jordan’s six championships were before Edwards was born. And his birthday was two months after Bryant’s second title in Los Angeles. So, Hines is still educating Edwards about their games, beyond the dunks and game-winning shots that still flood social media.
“Jordan had Steve Kerr,” Hines said. “He had [John] Paxson. [LeBron [James]](https://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/1966/lebron-james)LeBron [James] had Boobie Gibson at times. Guys who would really make these shots, timely shots. The [Robert] Horrys and such, throughout the history of the game. And if you don’t study that kind of stuff, you’ll keep banging your head against a brick wall.
“So it’s been a good transition for him to see that. We’ll see clips of Kobe when he passes to Rick Fox [with a pass]. Ant says, ‘Who’s Rick Fox?’ He had no idea who Rick Fox is. But he sees that he made the shot. So he’s getting a really good understanding of the history of the game and how it’s repeating itself [with him].”
Edwards acknowledges that he has struggled to evolve beyond his hero tendencies.
“My first times in the playoffs down the stretch, I always wanted to win the game by myself,” Edwards said. “Because growing up, when you watch the games, you always think, ‘Oh, they always make the big shots!’ But sometimes they make the extra pass, the right play.”
BUT NO MATTER how much he still strives to match the feats at the end of the game of Jordan and Bryant, he is 0 for 15 (0 for 10 in three-pointers) in his regular season career on tie or go-ahead shots in the last 10 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to data.
Including the playoffs, he is 1 of 18.
This season, Minnesota stumbled to a 20-26 record in close games, the second-most clutch losses in the league, and Edwards was a primary factor. He went 0-for-7 on those tying or go-ahead shots, the most such unsuccessful attempts in the league this season and tied for the most unsuccessful in the last five seasons.
Edwards’ coaches and teammates don’t intend to deactivate what drives him to want to take over, they say. It’s a change, another dimension, while providing him with all the defensive coverages he’s sure to see.
Está aprendiendo.
“That’s the balance he’s had to deal with because he’s a guy who goes, goes, goes,” Conley said. “And we tell him all the time, we want him to be aggressive to score. Don’t even think about us like, ‘Oh, let me try to get the ball to Mike.’ I think that’s when he slows down a little bit, when he’s like, ‘Oh, I just need to pass it.’ He becomes just a passer.
“So it’s about making him understand, staying in attack mode, being aggressive all the time, but while you’re doing that, can you process it? Can you pick it up when you see someone last minute coming to help, do you know where your exit is? And I think that’s where it’s getting to.”
It’s not intuitive yet. “Every three possessions, I’m going to throw one out of three,” Edwards said. “Especially down the stretch.”
The metronome in his mind reminds him: pass, pass, shoot. Or shoot, pass, pass. Or pass, shoot, pass. He has also felt motivated to give up the ball because he has worked to optimize his jump shots with reception and release. Playing like the proverbial Kerr, not just passing the ball.
He learned it last summer, when he was coached by Kerr in the Olympics and teamed up with Curry, James and his idol, [Kevin Durant](https://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/3202/kevin-durant)Kevin Durant.
“KD told me that being able to receive and shoot the ball is going to be the most important thing for me,” Edwards said.
Sometimes it’s the messenger, and not the message.
“We’ve been trying to get him to do that for several years because the numbers were so good,” Finch said. “He was such a good catch-and-shoot shooter, but he had always played with this pace with the ball in his hands, tried to generate his own shot off the dribble. So I think he felt a little uncomfortable, even though he had great success.”
His success in Paris last summer, winning a gold medal, changed him for the better, his teammates say.
“He talks about the U.S. Team more than he’s talked about anything. And he talks a lot,” Conley said. “I think it opened up a new world for him.”
At the same time, it only strengthened his worldview. “[It] put him in a realm of, ‘Look, they’re like me. Fuck, I’m actually better,’ in his head,” Hines said.
As his evolution continues, Edwards has the Wolves one win away from a second straight conference finals appearance. He assisted Conley on a three-pointer with 1:22 remaining in Game 5 of the first round to close out the Lakers; but he remains the guy who scored 16 of his 30 points in the third quarter of Game 4 of the second round to give the Wolves a 3-1 lead over the Warriors.
And the Wolves believe he can be the player who finally leads them to the first championship in the franchise’s 36-year history.
“I’ve been around a lot of great players. He trusts himself like… it’s like Kobe. And I was around Kobe,” Randle said.
Julius Randle
“He doesn’t fear any moment and wants those moments. His belief and confidence in who he is as a player is the highest I’ve seen or been around, for anyone.”
As Edwards has learned to trust the teammates around him, they have committed to trusting him as well.
“We preached to him: ‘Make the right play, make the right play,'” Finch said. “Ant told me once: ‘Maybe I am the right play.’
“And he is not mistaken.”
