Anthony Edwards is clearly one of the top performers in the NBA today. Just 24 years old, Edwards is already one of the league’s top scorers and is coming off a 2024-25 season where he led the association with 320 made three-pointers. One skill that Edwards has that isn’t talked about enough is his availability. It’s a quality he possesses that the majority of superstars do not.
Jason Timpf highlights Anthony Edwards' ability to stay on the court
On his podcast Hoops Tonight with Jason Timpf, Timpf has been doing his player rankings for the upcoming 2025-26 season. He has been placing the top players into tiers. On his most recent episode, Timpf named Edwards as his fifth-ranked player for next season, and at the top of the second tier superstars, which were players ranked #5-14.
Timpf went into a full breakdown of Edwards’ career thus far while also projecting what leaps may still be there for him to take. He also went into detail about something that isn’t always talked about regarding the first overall pick in 2020, and that’s his ability to stay on the court.
In each of the last three seasons, Edwards has appeared in 79 games, thus only missing three per year. While the 6-foot-4 shooting guard missed 10 in his second season (2021-22), he didn’t miss any as a rookie. Add it all up, and Edwards has missed a total of just 19 Timberwolves’ contests in his first five years in the NBA.
To further show how impressive that is, Timpf listed off a bunch of players who just last season missed more than that. Some of those players include:
- Luka Doncic
- Tyrese Maxey
- Paolo Banchero
- Zion Williamson
- Ja Morant
- Brandon Ingram
- Kristaps Porzingis
- Paul George
- Joel Embiid
- Chet Holmgren
That was only about half of the names that Timpf listed. He also gave Edwards a bunch of superlatives such as “most reliable player by availability”, “most dependable night-to-night superstar”, and “most likely player to be at or near his ceiling night-to-night”. Those are impressive superlatives to give to such a young player, and it’s hard to argue that Timpf is incorrect with his assessment.
First team All-NBA in 2025-26?
Of course, if Edwards does turn out to be the fifth-best player in the NBA, that would give him one of the five spots on the All-NBA first team. Edwards has been named to the second team each of the last two years while finishing seventh and tied for seventh in MVP voting.
This would be an important step forward for Edwards and the Timberwolves due to the past history of the NBA. Each of the last 21 NBA champions has had a player recently named to the All-NBA first team. The last team to win it all without someone like that on their roster is the 2003-04 Pistons.