Minnesota Timberwolves: SI ranks three Wolves from No. 51 to No. 100
By Ben Beecken
SI.com ranks Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards at No. 77
Anthony Edwards was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft and figured to get plenty of minutes for a Wolves team that was trying to find more on-ball scorers as they attempted to climb into the playoff conversation in the Western Conference.
Edwards began the year on the bench last year and struggled to find any semblance of a rhythm. Towns was injured in the second game of the season, and Edwards had to navigate the next few weeks without his star big man.
Eventually, Edwards ended up in the starting lineup alongside veteran point guard Ricky Rubio. Russell went out with an injury around the time that Towns returned, and Edwards was forced into on-the-job training when it came to initiating offense at the NBA level.
Head coach Ryan Saunders was fired before Russell returned, and by the time that D’Lo was back and new head coach Chris Finch had begun to install his offensive system, Edwards had become a force.
From March 1 through the end of the season, Edwards put up 23.6 points per game while shooting 45.1 percent from the floor, 34.1 from beyond the arc, and 76.5 percent from the free throw line. He added 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.
Compare that to his numbers from December, January, and February: 14.8 points per game on shooting splits of 37.2/31.2/80.0 with four rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 0.8 steals per game.
The SI.com list mentions Edwards’ 56.7 true shooting percentage post-All-Star break as a key indicator of improvement, up from 46.6 percent before the break.
Clearly, increased opportunity combined with real growth and understanding of the NBA game, and Edwards was dominant over the final weeks of the season. If the March/April/May version of Edwards comes to play for the entirety of the 2021-22 campaign, Edwards will easily be in the top 40 of this list, if not higher, come fall of 2022.
Edwards managed to beat out former Timberwolf Robert Covington (No. 80) as well as a series of handsomely-paid veterans: Philadelphia’s Seth Curry (No. 81), Sacramento’s Buddy Hield (No. 79), and Charlotte’s Terry Rozier (No. 78).
He was a slot behind Chicago’s Lonzo Ball, as well as Washington’s Spencer Dinwiddie (No. 75) and Atlanta’s Bojan Bogdanovic (No. 74). All three of those players probably could have been ranked even higher, pushing Brooklyn’s Joe Harris (No. 72) and Cleveland’s Collin Sexton (No. 71) back a bit.
While we can quibble with the exact rankings, putting Edwards in the No. 70-80 range makes sense. Remember, this list isn’t factoring contract or upside. If that was the case, he’d be much higher.
There’s one more Wolves player on this portion of the list, and he dropped significantly for the second consecutive year.