Thursday evening featured the official release of the starters for the 2025 NBA All-Star game. Minnesota Timberwolves fans were hopeful that Anthony Edwards would be recognized for his fantastic individual performance this season, but they were ultimately let down by the results.
Edwards was left out of the starting group for the Western Conference All-Stars. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Nikola Jokic will be the starting five for the West on All-Star weekend.
Does this mean that Ant won't be an All-Star at all this season? No, since he can still be selected as a reserve. The only caveat here being that the coaches will have to select him now. The full list of reserves is set to be released in six days, on Thursday, January 30.
Edwards can still be selected as an All-Star reserve
While Edwards did not make it into the exclusive 10-man club of All-Star starters this season, another face familiar to Wolves fans did: Karl-Anthony Towns. Ironically, in his first season since leaving Minnesota, KAT was selected as a starter in the Eastern Conference, along with Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
To be clear, this is an honor Towns absolutely deserves. He is averaging 25.1 points on career-bests of 54.5% from the floor and 43% from three. He has been one of the main catalysts of the New York Knicks being a top three seed in the East this year.
With that said, it still felt like Ant deserved a spot of his own among the starters in the West. But it is ultimately not too surprising that he was not selected, given that the Timberwolves' record is not nearly as strong as it was last season.
We saw how the media was much lower on LaMelo Ball than fans were, likely due to his team's record. The same would seem to be true of Edwards and the Timberwolves.